Bad Girls
by Christine Morgan
Summary: An explosive fanfic novella inspired by Greg Weisman's "Bad Guys" idea. Violence, language, some sexual content. #69 in an ongoing saga.
1. Solitary

Bad Girls   
by Christine Morgan   
christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org 

Chapter One -- Solitary 

* * *

Author's Note: the characters of Gargoyles are the property of Disney and are used here without their creators' knowledge or consent.   
All other characters belong to the author and should not be borrowed without permission. Some adult language, violence, and sexual   
content – a little of everything! g>   


* * *

  
**_June, 2003_**   


The entire wall was one large flat screen, and the quality of the image was so good that Lorraine Diamant felt as if she were watching   
it all take place through a mural window. As if the violence unfolding in front of her was happening right now, instead of merely being a   
recording.   
However, if she'd been watching it through a window, the scene would not be so jerky, panning around so wildly to capture the   
action. There would have been none of these dizzying swoops as the helicopter veered in its flight, none of the choppy cuts as images from   
its cameras were spliced with those shot by the ground crews.   
Anyone else might have gotten a headache from trying to keep track of what was going on, but Lorraine was accustomed to viewing the   
mission video logs compiled by the operatives, and had no trouble following the sequence of events.   
She was peripherally aware of the others in the room, all anxiously keeping an eye on her, knowing that her reaction could make or break   
careers, even lives. If she thought they'd botched it badly enough, she could have them erased with only a minimum of fuss. On the contrary,   
if she approved of the way they'd handled themselves, why, the sky was the limit for those favored few.   
Well, maybe not the _sky_ … she would never elevate any of them to within shouting range of her own status in the organization. She was   
the Diamond, as hard and brilliant as her namesake, and none of them would ever be allowed to forget it. The same sharp fire glittered from   
her jewelry and her eyes – for all that her eyes were a shade of brown that _should_ have been soft and dewy and warm.   
She tapped one meticulously-manicured nail against her lips as the video log approached the part that most interested her. It was a risk, a   
terrible risk, but they had apparently gotten away with it … provided the log didn't reveal any unpleasant surprises.   
They had had far too many of those already. What had initially been supposed to be nothing more than a simple retrieval-and-mop-up had   
turned into what her ex-husband was snidely referring to as "The Battle of Bellingham."   
"Gargoyles," murmured Lorraine Diamant, shaking her head reprovingly. "It would have to be gargoyles."   
On the screen, the image was that of a slate-grey male with mangled wings, clinging determinedly to the underside of the chopper and   
tearing at it with a fury that transcended his drugged demeanor. Obviously, the sedative gas darts weren't as effective in practice as in theory,   
knowing as little as they did about gargoyle biology.   
Another appeared, zigging and zagging through the redwoods. It was a female with a figure that would have been the envy of a woman half   
Lorraine's age. There weren't enough spas, Stairmasters, or plastic surgeons in the world to make limbs that muscular and taut, curves that   
firm and shapely.   
As if sensing Lorraine's scrutiny, the female whirled and stared directly into the camera, her white-gold hair a torrent around features both   
barbaric and beautiful, the sort of face one might expect to see painted on a Grecian urn. One depicting the Furies, perhaps.   
But it was not the mature and sophisticated Director General of the Coalition that had caught the she-garg's attention. No, she was focused   
on the chopper itself, and her cohort who was busily doing his best to tear a hole in it and get at the juicy, defenseless humans within. The   
copper-skinned female soared to join him.   
The helicopter tilted and the savage downbeat of air from its rotors buffeted her, sending her into a helpless spinning plummet. Her quiver   
upended, arrows scattering like a rain of toothpicks. Of her bow, the bow that had let her kill five men that night and one on a previous, there   
was no sign.   
In another of those jarring shifts, the scene changed to that from the ground crew. They had been approaching Dr. Michelle Jessec's house   
overland, from the forested gully that backed onto the property. But the undergrowth had been thicker than anticipated, slowing them to the   
point that they could only listen in horror and dismay to the reports coming over their headsets as the gargoyles laid waste to the operatives   
who had gone in from the front.   
One of them had looked up just in time to catch the female's sudden descent. She struck a tonguelike outcropping of rock above them with   
such pulverizing force that Lorraine heard many of the operatives grunt in pained sympathy despite the knowledge that the gargoyle had dealt   
clothyard death to many of their friends and associates.   
The impact was so severe that it dislodged the chunk of stone from its moorings in the embankment, and the whole thing came loose. It   
plunged straight down with the female sprawled across it, and smashed into the rocky creekbank almost atop the ground crew.   
The chunk of stone cracked apart, spilling the gargoyle into the creek in a dazed, semi-conscious heap. A small avalanche of gravel sifted   
gratingly down.   
The ground crew stood motionless for a moment, stunned by their close call and riveted by the sight of the winged copper Amazon virtually   
at their feet. Then, Op. 55 swung into action, barking commands.   
Lorraine watched impassively as the crew on the screen – the same ones now assembled around her and sweating it out because she still had   
given them no visible reaction to gauge her mood – tranked and trussed the gargoyle with the speed of rodeo cowboys. They hustled her into   
the bushes scant seconds before the male gargoyle got there.   
Here, yes, this was the crucial thing, the telling thing. Lorraine stepped closer to the screen, intently studying the male's face. His classically   
handsome features, set amid scars like a masterpiece in a bad frame, contorted in anguish as he threw himself to his knees.   
He pawed at the mess of broken stone, and tipped back his head to keen grief and rage at the sky. As if that outpouring of emotion sapped   
the last of his adrenaline, the dazed, doped look began to creep back into his eyes. He tottered to his feet, clutching a handful of gravel.   
"So it's true, then," she said. "He thinks she's dead. Dead and crumbled away to nothing. You were very, very lucky."   
A collective sigh of relief went up from the operatives.   
"You've done well," Lorraine added. "We have a captive gargoyle of our very own, with no one the wiser. She'll make a perfect addition." 

** 

A luxuriously-appointed cell was a cell nonetheless, and it was very much with the air of one who knew it that Hippolyta paced the confines   
of the room.   
Her initial thought upon awakening the previous night had been that this was whatever afterlife she'd earned, but she soon dismissed that   
idea and understood that somehow, she was alive after all.   
Alive, and a prisoner.   
Captured by humans.   
It had to be thus, because this chamber was outfitted to their tastes and design. It had electric lights, appliances, a bed. Oddest of all had   
been drawing back the curtains and finding herself looking out on a scene of sunlit splendor, a tropical curve of bone-white sand and water of   
turquoise clarity behind which a verdant jungle marched toward a volcanic crest.   
The sight had initially almost triggered her to drowsiness despite having just woken, but when she shook off the impending stiffness of sleep,   
she understood that it was not a true window. The waves did not move, the trees did not sway. A moment of preserved time, a picture, so   
perfectly rendered that it fooled the eye and the mind.   
A false window, and a door that would not open. And a feeling, a persistent tickle on the back of her neck, that let her believe she was being   
observed. Seeing Stone or camera, which it was did not matter, for the effect was the same.   
Her shouts had been to no avail, and the walls and furnishings bore the evidence of her futile attempts to break out. She'd been left stewing   
in her fear and anger for several hours, and finally made herself admit that she was well and truly held.   
The day's sleep had healed her of the injuries she'd sustained. But they must have been severe, for she had earnestly believed death was at   
hand. Even now, after another full day spent in stone, she was still sore.   
She was also ravenous.   
Her initial exploration had included a cursory glance into the larders, but until now she hadn't dared eat lest the food be poisoned. She   
returned to the small kitchen area and peered once more into the refrigerator, noting that it was well-stocked with the meat that her body   
demanded.   
If they meant her harm, surely they would not need to resort to poison. She had been at their mercy in the firmest and most fundamental of   
ways, insensate and utterly helpless, for hours. Yet rather than destroy her, they'd evidently transported her with some care, and were therefore   
going to pains to keep her unharmed.   
So saying, she convinced herself and pulled out a chunk of cold ham. A few careful sniffs only informed her that it smelled _wonderful_, and   
without further ado she sank her fangs deep and devoured it down to the bone.   
When it was gone, she tore into a platter of cold cuts, meats and cheeses arranged in an artful layered swirl around a heap of olives. She   
washed the repast down with most of a carton of milkk surprised at her hunger. But then, hadn't Ruth always speculated that a serious healing   
placed great demands on their systems?   
As she ate, she wondered again what had become of the others. When last she'd seen them, Icarus had been trying to defeat the airborne   
flying machine while Corwin, Cassius, and Ezekiel were swamped in combat at the front of the house. Tourmaline, wounded thanks to   
Hippolyta's own dismal failures, had been waiting on the boat.   
And she, Hippolyta, had disobeyed her clan leader's direct orders. Ignored the punishment she was supposed to be enduring. Gone off on   
her own.   
Gone off to kill.   
Her hesitance had vanished, her purpose had been restored, as she'd sighted down her arrow at the human who was about to order Corwin   
shot. There had been no pause that time, only a cool and even resolve.   
To do what she was best at, and do it _well_, brought on a terrible, prideful, savage joy. It welled hotly in her heart as one by one her targets   
fell. Some had time for a scream, but most went only in mortal silence.   
Oh, she had earned their fury and revenge, that had to be a certainty. But when given the chance, they had imprisoned rather than killed her.   
Why? Was their intent worse than a quick punishment of death? Much as she craved novel experiences, her desire did not extend to   
experiencing a slow and agonizing torture.   
It was torture enough of the mind, simply not to know what had happened after that night. Where were the others? Were there other rooms   
like this nearby, where her brothers were contained? If so, the walls must be thick indeed, else surely she would have heard them. Had they   
gotten away?   
Were they …   
No, unbearable thought swiftly banished. To imagine them dead – cheery Cassius, taciturn Icarus, steadfast Ezekiel, charming Corwin – was   
intolerably grim and bleak. They must have survived, even made their way back to the _Mist's Passage_, back to Tourmaline.   
Sated for the time being, Hippolyta shoved the platter back into the fridge and prowled the room once more on a hopeless quest for a weapon.   
She had lost her bow at some point during that wild flight, and her arrows had either spilled out or been taken from her, because the quiver   
strapped to her belt was empty.   
Nothing in the room would suffice unless she fashioned a crude club out of a table leg. Disdaining that, she knew that her own talons were   
better weapons in such close fighting. Some of the pieces of her shed skin had potential as arrowheads, but she had neither shafts nor feathers,   
and no bow to shoot from if she did.   
Finding one shard that tapered to a point, she kept it as a crude knife and brushed the rest under the bed.   
The food had restored her mental equilibrium. She wasted no more energy on pointless fretting. It all came down to survival now, survival and   
escape. Like any predator, she would have to rely on her cunning and instinct to tell her when the moment was right to strike. If, that was, the   
moment ever presented itself.   
She settled down into a comfortable crouch, wings half-extended and tail coiled loosely on the carpet behind her. All of her senses alert, she   
nonetheless took on an aspect of relaxation, turning her attention toward grooming. She unbraided the thin plaits that dangled by her temples and   
with her claws combed her white-gold mane into a smooth drape over her coppery shoulders. 

** 

"Well, Dr. Johnson?" Lorraine Diamant inquired. "What do you think of our specimen?"   
The woman she was addressing consulted her notebook for several moments before looking up, taking the time to gather her thoughts and   
order her words. That was one thing about Irene Johnson that Diamond found both respectable and exasperating in one. She rarely spoke, and   
never until she was sure of herself.   
The xenologist was a plain woman who could have been attractive with only a bit of attention and cosmetics. Prime makeover material,   
Diamond had always believed. As she waited for the doctor's report, she amused herself by thinking what she'd do if she had the chance.   
That thick dark hair should have been conditioned and styled, not just combed straight from a boring central part. Make it shorter, add a   
loose curl, maybe some highlights in copper or chestnut.   
The glasses _had_ to go. Diamond didn't even know they still made those ordinary black plastic frames. At the very least, a nice gold wire-rim   
like she herself wore, or possibly contacts. Yes, contacts, with the barest of greenish tint to add some color to those flat hazel eyes.   
"She definitely appears to be of the classic gargoyle mold," Dr. Johnson said. "Approximately forty years of age, making her a young adult.   
She's in good physical health, now that her injuries have healed. Judging by her clothing and weapons, which are fantasy-medieval in design,   
she's probably from this Avalon island the others talked about."   
"You think she's related to the Manhattan gargoyles, then?"   
"It's a possibility I wouldn't dismiss."   
"What can we expect from her?"   
"What do you intend to do with her?" Johnson countered.   
"That depends on what we can expect. Will she be cooperative?"   
"Not initially. They are a very proud species. You've seen the interview with the one called Goliath?"   
"Of course. Very stirring. He has a marvelous voice. 'Gargoyles protect … it is our nature, our purpose.' Sound byte of the year, wasn't it?"   
"You can expect a similar attitude from her. They tend to be forthright, honest, noble, stubborn, and hot-tempered. What makes this case   
especially interesting is that you have one solitary gargoyle. They are herdbeasts, pack animals. Gargoyles don't do well alone, and if you keep   
her by herself for any significant length of time, she'll begin to show signs of mental and emotional instability."   
"What are we to do, then? She is the only one we were able to capture."   
"They live in clans, not family units … and a clan doesn't necessarily have to consist of relatives, or even other gargoyles. The ones in   
Manhattan consider several humans and mutates to be part of their 'clan.' They need that sort of bond, and can't function without it. The worst   
punishment that can be imposed on a gargoyle is exile, banishment from the clan. They'd prefer death to being alone."   
"So without some sort of clan-bond, you're telling me that she's going to be unstable?"   
"Yes. But the psychological imperative of that bond will force her to seek out a new clan, someone with which to have that vital relationship."   
"I see." Diamond tapped a finger thoughtfully against her lips.   
"My advice would be to let her stew for a while. Let the isolation start to get to her. By the time you approach, she'll be so pitifully glad to see   
_anyone_ that she'll be easy to manipulate. And once that clan-bond has formed, you'll find gargoyles to be extremely, even blindly, loyal."   
"Thank you, Dr. Johnson. All good advice."   
"I'm not finished. There's a down side to this intense loyalty … gargoyles trust implicitly within the clan, almost cannot conceive of dishonesty   
and betrayal from one of their own clan members. If they find out that one of their own has been deceitful or treacherous, once they believe it,   
they react harshly, even violently. So you'll have to be careful dealing with her."   
"I am always careful," Diamond said patiently. "Is there anything more?"   
"Remember that they are not like us. That's the big mistake we make when dealing with another species. They. Are. Not. Like. Us. There are   
similarities, yes, but in all ways – physical, psychological, social, cultural – they are different. You cannot expect a gargoyle to act or react the   
same way a human would. Likewise, we are not like them, but that's the big mistake they make too. They'll expect humans to act and react the   
same way a gargoyle would, and it perplexes them when we don't."   
"What about more mundane matters? The care and feeding thereof?"   
Johnson consulted her papers again. "You know about the dietary requirements – high protein, salts and heavy minerals. If you're going to   
keep her confined underground without the environmental cue of the sun, be prepared for a shift in her sleeping habits. Oh … and speaking of   
the sun, get some full-spectrum lighting in there to turn on when she's stone. They absorb UV radiation from the sun while they sleep to help fuel   
their metabolisms."   
"What happens if she's exposed to full-spectrum lighting at night? Will it put her to sleep?"   
"Actually, it acts as a mild stimulant, an effect not unlike that of coffee on the human nervous system. That's one of the many things we still   
don't understand. We might never know all there is to know about these creatures, especially as no specimens are available for dissection."   
"No, I suppose there wouldn't be, would there?"   
"The only way to do a thorough anatomical examination would be to use one that was still alive but heavily sedated."   
"And I doubt that David Xanatos was willing to go quite so far in the interests of scientific advancement," Diamond said, wrinkling her   
aristocratic nose just slightly at the mention of the despised name.   
"Are you?" Johnson asked baldly.   
"When this specimen has outlived her usefulness, do you mean?"   
"Yes."   
"I'll consider it, doctor. Provided, of course, that what I have in mind for her doesn't get her killed by more conventional means." 

** 

It was the waiting that most preyed on the mind. The not knowing. Bad enough to be at the mercy of unseen strangers, but to be left hanging   
while the mind had the leisure to imagine countless horrific fates … it was the worst torment Hippolyta had ever known.   
That and not having her freedom! It was the quest for freedom that had led her to leave Avalon in the first place. That had made her refuse to   
take a mate during the breeding season, so as to not be earthbound with eggs and burdened ever after with the needs of hatchlings.   
Now that for which she had sought had been taken from her, and the future to which she had so avidly looked forward turned to an uncertainty   
as dark and clouded as the mists that gathered around the island of her previous life.   
She waited out that entire long night, a churning anxiety eating away at the guts of her. And still nothing happened.   
She woke the next evening in the same state, and it built as the hours ticked by until she feared she might erupt in a desperate panic. Yet if a   
full-blown rage could not break through the walls of her prison, a panicked effort would do no better.   
Disturbing to see that someone had been in here while she slept … the room had been tidied, some of the damage repaired, the foodstuffs   
restocked. And a new light had been added, a bulb in a cage on the ceiling, but it was unlit.   
They had been in here, moving around her as she stood motionless.   
It made her skin creep just to think of it. But of course she understood their concern … they need not fear her attacking them if they came   
when she could not move.   
Hippolyta searched around, sure that they had to be watching her. Perhaps they listened as well? Feeling foolish, she spoke aloud into the   
stillness.   
"I won't fight you … I only wish to know who you are and what you intend!"   
There came no reply, no indication that her words had even been heard. She was left once more with her imagination, which had never been   
more energetic than it was that long night, suggesting cruelties and tortures that would reduce her to a pleading wretch.   
And still they did not come for her. Soon, she would have welcomed them joyously even if they came laden with instruments of pain, just to   
see another face, hear another voice.   
She made herself eat to keep up her strength, felt edgy and strange and out-of sorts. The window-picture with its unchanging sunlit scene left   
her all at odds with herself. She knew it to be night for she was awake, yet with no changing horizon to guide her, how was she to know when   
dawn neared? The hours stretched like taffy and stone sleep took her by surprise.   
Waking, she nearly sobbed to find herself still alone.   
She had never been alone for so long, not in all her life. None of them had. Even in the shell, she and her brothers and sisters were near each   
other. After hatching, well, it was a small island and got smaller quickly when the Children were summoned home for their Gathering.   
When hunting, she would often distance herself from her less woods-wise siblings, sometimes preferring the quiet of no tread nor breath save   
her own, but she'd always known that a mere few moments' glide would take her back to them. Back to the voices and firelight and merriment.   
Back to the squabbles and jesting and play. The comfort came in knowing they were there should she need them.   
Now, that comfort was stripped from her. No Ruth to scold as she bandaged a scrape. No Gabriel to settle a dispute over whose claim was   
a kill. No Corwin to braid her fresh-washed hair. No Miriam to coax sweets upon them. No loveplay, no stories, no shared meals.   
No clan.   
Why hadn't they come for her? Why hadn't they rescued her? Did they think her dead? Had they tried and failed? Had they given up?   
If she was dead to her clan … she might as well be dead in truth! It would be better than this! Better than being alone!   
She forced herself to calm her rapid breathing before it turned to frantic gasps of fear. Dead was not better. While there was life, there was   
hope. Hope of escape, of reunion.   
But in dead, whispered an insinuating part of her soul, was reunion as well … with all those who've gone before. Some of your sisters are   
there – remember Opal, Onyx, Citrine? Your rookery parents are there – great Goliath's brothers and sisters, the elders of the clan.   
Recall how pleased and proud Angela was to tell them that great Goliath was her own true father, or Jericho to boast that Demona was his   
mother? What of _your_ parents, Hippolyta? Your flesh-and-blood parents whose love brought you life? They will be there too. And the Magus,   
let us not forget him. Think of all whose company you could keep in death! Far more than those around you now in life!   
But as tempting as that sly inner voice was, Hippolyta knew that she could not heed it. Could not, no matter how despairing her circumstance,   
give in to death. She wanted to wring life of all its wonders first, and there were so many things she had yet to do! Places yet to see! Adventures   
yet to have!   
No, she could not die, not until she was old and old, with a long life of experiences to look back upon. Not until she had mated and bred and   
seen hatchlings grow tall and strong, to breed young ones of their own. And that was still far, far in the future!   
But to be alone … suppose they meant to leave her like this forever? Suppose this was her fate, to be here in this room, eternally confined?   
Alone for all time, denied all that she craved …   
That would be a torture worse than anything they could inflict on her with tools and devices.   
She realized with a shameful start that hot tears were flowing from her eyes. Angrily, she dashed them away, but more came after. It was as if   
her eyes, able to see into the future, were grieving for that which the rest of her was not yet ready to admit.   
The tears did not cease until stone claimed her.   
She woke badly, bursting sluggishly from stone and feeling low and ill. For the first time, she understood what Princess Katherine had meant   
when she complained of sleeping poorly. Despite the hours, she felt unrested, unwell.   
And she was still alone.   
Once again, her unknown captors had come and gone.   
It went on that way for night after night.   
She tried to occupy her time with solitary pursuits. She told herself all the legends and stories with which the Magus had once filled their ears.   
She sang all the songs she knew, since Zachariah was not around to laugh at her and tell her to leave the singing to Deborah and Laertes, who   
could do it without sounding like a lynx in a snare. She exercised, she danced, she shredded the bedclothes into long strips and attempted   
weaving a crude rug.   
She ate to keep her strength up, though her appetite dwindled. Eventually, she became indifferent about her grooming, letting her hair knot   
itself in unkempt snarls. She quit tidying her shed stone skin, leaving it heedlessly where it fell.   
By her internal calendar, a full turning or more of the moon had gone by. It had been summer, or so the Jessecs said though the cold rainy   
weather of their region did little to support that claim. Was it into autumn now? Were the leaves changing to gold and flame? Were the fruits   
ripening?   
"Please!" Hippolyta suddenly screamed at the roof. "Do not do this to me! Punish me, kill me, do what you must, but by the Dragon do not   
leave me alone any longer!"   
When there came no response, she broke down completely into such a storm of wracking sobs that she felt they might never end.   
Much later, as her fit subsided, she felt hollowed out yet somehow cleaner, as if her heart had sicked up something that did not agree with her.   
She washed her face, which felt fevered and swollen, and lowered herself to the floor with her wings caped and her back pressed against the   
side of the bed.   
There she sat, head in her hands and tail coiled around her feet, and waited. 

** 

"Thirty-nine days," Dr. Johnson said with grudging respect. "That's a good week and a half longer than my outside estimate. She's a tough   
one. But all nuts crack sooner or later."   
"We couldn't afford much later," Diamond said. 

** 

Hippolyta's vigil was at long last rewarded, when a strange clunk from deep within the wall heralded its opening. A section of it swung   
outward on hidden hinges, but it admitted no one and appeared to have moved untouched by human hand.   
She rose slowly, in disbelief, and went toward it. She could see an outer chamber, a floor covered in dark blue tiles, and another wall   
made of something that looked like thick glass. Someone was waiting on the other side of the glass.   
Before stepping through, Hippolyta studied the person. It was a human, a handsome woman of relatively advanced years. Not so old as   
the princess had been when they'd left, but more grey than brown was in her hair, and despite much attention to cosmetics, a fine network of   
wrinkles spread from the corners of her eyes and mouth.   
The woman was dressed in crisp dark brown slacks, a cream-colored silky blouse, and a patterned scarf-drape in hues of brown, tan,   
and gold. Gems glinted in her earlobes and on her fingers, and dainty gold-framed spectacles rested at the end of her narrow nose.   
"No need to hide," the woman said. "I've been in meetings about you for four weeks straight, so isn't it time we actually met?"   
"Who are you?" Hippolyta said, still not leaving her furnished cell for the empty space of the outer room. She feared that the moment she   
did, the woman would vanish. It was a foolish notion, yet her mind clung firmly to it.   
"My name is Lorraine Diamant, but you can call me Diamond. I am one of the directors of this organization."   
"Organization … the Coalition?"   
"As a matter of fact, yes."   
"Why should I talk to you? I know what your people do." She tried to sound brave and challenging, tried to hide the pitiful gladness she   
felt at having someone to talk to again, even a human, even the enemy.   
"And we know what you've done, which puts all of us in a very awkward situation. Do you have any idea the trouble you've caused?"   
"I do not know what you mean."   
The woman sighed. "Would you mind coming closer? It's hard to carry on a conversation like this."   
Reluctantly, Hippolyta edged onto the blue tile. It was cold beneath her feet. The walls were painted drab grey, the ceiling pocked white   
panels. But the woman did not vanish, only smiled encouragingly.   
As she got closer, she saw a speaker-grill mounted in the glass wall, as well as a door with a large metal handle on the other side. _Only_   
on the other side. And if the workings of the lock visible through the clear guts of the door were any indication, her chances of getting it open   
were beyond none.   
"Where is my clan?"   
"I was hoping you could tell me."   
"Why would I, even did I know? That you might hold them prisoner as well?"   
"There's no need for antagonism with me. Right now, I'm the only ally you have."   
"What mean you?" Hippolyta asked in suspicion.   
"Six of our operatives are dead by your hand, and most here would like nothing better than to see you turned over to the proper authorities.   
Do you know what would happen to you then? A gargoyle, a killer? Your kind is already not very well-regarded, and this incident would only   
reinforce the public's belief that you're all vicious monsters."   
"I did only what I had to do!" flared Hippolyta. "Your men were attacking my brothers!"   
"Your 'brothers,' as you say, started it. Our men were defending themselves."   
"They meant to abduct a woman!"   
"They were assigned to bring her here, yes," Diamond said. "Because we needed her help. You gargoyles prevented us from getting that   
help."   
Despite everything she'd been through, Hippolyta felt herself getting mad. And she welcomed it, preferring anger to the state of misery   
that had ruled her for so long.   
"You sent assassins to do murder on her brother and nephew, threatened her family. If that be how you ask for help --"   
"I don't know whatever gives you that idea --"   
"A confession from the very lips of the man named Shaw, 'ere he died."   
A pained look flitted across Diamond's face. "I see. Well, as you've probably noticed, others in this organization tend to have a more   
straight-forward approach. They sometimes get carried away. But the operatives sent to Dr. Jessec's house were only instructed to bring   
her to us, unharmed."   
"We saw what became of the man, Smythe. We know of your magic portal and what is beyond it. Michelle Jessec would be no party to   
continuing such evil work, no matter how you seek to 'convince' her."   
"That's just it; we don't want to continue it. We want to stop it. We were hoping that Dr. Jessec would be able to help, but you gargoyles   
interfered. Now several of our men are dead, and there are plenty of people who would be more than happy to see you pay for your butting-in."   
Hippolyta grew very still. Although there had not been so much as a hint of malice in Diamond's tone, she was suddenly very sure just   
precisely _how_ these people would like to see her pay.   
"If word got out that you had killed humans," Diamond continued, confirming her worry, "not just one but _six_, everyone in the country   
would be howling for your blood. What tentative truces have been established between humans and the few known gargoyles would be cast   
into an unfavorable light once again. The only way to keep that from happening is for you to cooperate."   
"And tell you where my clan's gone?" She shook her head. "I told you … I cannot. They could be anywhere by now, or they could be at   
your door, come to retrieve me."   
"I'm afraid that last is not an option." Diamond looked at her evenly. "They believe you to be dead."   
"But --"   
"See for yourself."   
A young man in a grey suit pushed a rolling cart up beside Diamond. A small black device of the sort she thought to be a television was   
atop it. Diamond aimed a squat sort of wand at it and it came to life.   
Hippolyta gasped in amazement to see herself, but her amazement swiftly turned to horror as she witnessed her own crashing descent. She   
watched, stupefied, as the humans surrounded her limp body, binding her and bearing her away. And then, a new shape entered the scene, and   
her heart wrenched as she recognized him.   
"Icarus!"   
"How fitting," remarked Diamond.   
Ignoring her, Hippolyta kept watching as Icarus scooped up gravel of the shattered outcropping and mistook it for her remains. She had   
never seen her brother and one-time best friend weep, the stoicism brought on by a lifetime of pain a source of awe to the entire clan. But   
now a single tear rolled from his eye to wet the sorry handful of what he believed to be her.   
He cried for her? Icarus? After all that had gone between them, after the misfortune and suffering she'd caused him with that long-ago   
dare?   
She reached out, but the wall of glass was in the way. And of course this was not happening now. This had happened before and been   
preserved, a tragic moment in time. Kept forever like the Entombed Lady on Avalon, unchanging, unable to be changed.   
"Icarus," she said again, a low, mournful plea.   
"You see," said Diamond briskly, triggering the wand and making the television go dark.   
The woman went on talking, but Hippolyta barely heard. Her mind was filled with her brothers and sister, her clan. By now, with no sign   
of rescue, she had assumed they must have believed her lost, but it was one thing to assume it, another to see such proof.   
Thinking her dead, would they have departed while the rest were all right, or stayed and vowed revenge? Were they, even now, seeking   
a way to strike at the Coalition? Or had they taken the more prudent course and returned to the mists, to try their luck again on some happier   
shore?   
If it had in truth been weeks, they must have gone. Tourmaline was not patient enough to wait on an assault …   
"Are you listening to me?"   
The words cut sharply through her thoughts. She was alarmed to find that she was perilously close to tears of her own, at the prospect of   
her grieving brothers. Perhaps even proud Tourmaline, despite their bitter parting, might find it in herself to grieve for her?   
"I must go to them, find them!" she said.   
"That's not possible right now."   
"You mean to keep me here always?"   
"Obviously, you weren't listening. If you had been, you would have heard me explain the choices to you."   
"Go on." It was all she trusted herself to say, when her soul cried out that she should scream, _I am dead to my clan! How can you talk of_   
_fripperies and nonsense and choices when they speak of me now only as a memory?_   
"I have enough authority in this organization to keep you alive," Diamond said. "I've had to pull a lot of strings to do it, though. Two of the   
operatives you killed were very well-connected indeed."   
"Why should you care? What am I to you?"   
"I despise waste, especially senseless waste. You have shown many useful abilities and skills. If you are willing to cooperate and agree to   
my terms, I can buy you your life."   
"What are these terms?" she asked warily.   
"I am in charge of forming a special team of operatives," Diamond said. "To conduct missions that for one reason and another aren't able to   
be handled by our usual ops. I'm willing to offer you a position on that team."   
"And this entails what?"   
"Does it matter? Given the alternative?"   
"This, then, is my choice? Accept your offer sight unseen, or be executed?"   
"That sums it up. I know you gargoyles are an honor-bound breed, but does it extend so far as to include needless self-sacrifice? A young,   
vibrant creature like yourself surely has much to look forward to in life. I'd hate to see you throw it all away on principle."   
Hippolyta turned away from her, talons knotted together and knuckles paled from the tension.   
Diamond let her stand that way for a while, then said in a softer tone, "Why don't you think about it? I'll be back later if you have any   
questions."   
On legs that felt like stilts of wood, Hippolyta returned to the more familiar room. She sank onto the edge of the bed and buried her head   
in her hands as the door swung soundlessly shut.   
The woman had put her finger right on it … so much to look forward to, so much living yet to do!   
She was not afraid to die someday. Someday far down the years, when she had a full life behind her. Yes, she would accept it when it was   
inevitable. But that was different, so very different, from _choosing_ death!   
"I … do not wish to die," she whispered. It both felt and sounded like the coward's admission that she knew it was.   
Yes, that was it … for all her thrillseeking, for all the risks and dares she had faced so bravely countless times before, she had never truly   
believed that she would die. After Icarus' terrible, crippling accident, her daredevil ways had been curbed only for a few nights, because deep   
down she never thought anything so serious would happen to _her_, not Hippolyta, not fortune-favors-the-bold Hippolyta!   
Had she _ever_ thought anything serious would come of her actions? Not before loosing the arrows that had slain the man who had shot   
Corwin … and even in her resultant crisis of doubts, even after taking a life, she'd still not believed that _she_ could be harmed.   
Only when she'd been flung earthward by the cruel downdrafts of the rotating blades and slammed into the ground, only then had she finally   
believed. And then, she'd thought it was too late. Inevitable. Nothing to be done.   
Now, here she was, alive and whole but facing the prospect of her own death by her own choosing. How could they expect her to do that?   
How could they expect any sane and thinking creature to deliberately choose to die, unless it was to put an end to incurable suffering?   
She couldn't do it. Could not, now or ever, stand fast and _let_ herself be killed. Go peaceably and willingly to the headsman's block? To the   
gallows? To whatever engine of execution these humans favored? No! Never!   
Not when there was so much _living_ yet to be done! So much excitement yet to be had! How could she give that up? She had only barely   
begun to experience all the world's wonders. Good or bad, fair or awful, she at least wanted to be able to find out for herself. To give it all up   
… no! For what?   
And yet … if she accepted Diamond's offer, who knew what that might include? A special team of operatives, she'd said. Going to work for   
the very people whose malice had nearly killed Ron, Toby, Corwin, even herself … the very people whose unholy thirst for power had brought   
Dr. Smythe to his awful end … how could she do such a thing? They were the enemy! What evil work might they expect her to do?   
What indeed? Her special skills and abilities, Diamond had said … Hippolyta had the dark and sinking feeling she knew what _that_ meant.   
They would seek to turn her into a soldier, turn her ready eye and steady hand against their foes.   
They would put her to work fighting for them, and perhaps next time they needed to murder someone to send a message to someone else, it   
might be her shadow that fell across the victim in those final few moments.   
But if it was that or death … 

** 

"Do you fully understand these oaths as I've explained them to you?" asked the black-suited man gruffly.   
Winston Brock III was a tall man verging slightly on portly, with wiry grey hair that came to a pronounced widow's peak and a face that   
was better suited to a dour gnome. A dour gnome of a particularly miserly and suspicious nature.   
He was not at all a handsome man by the standards of any of the three races. The downturn of his mouth suggested to Hippolyta that this   
was something he'd been aware of his entire life, and vowed to compensate for not by seeking to improve his features but by becoming so   
wealthy and influential that his looks ceased to matter.   
"I do so understand," she said.   
Beside her, Diamond smiled measuredly at the man. "Is everything in order, then, darling?"   
The endearment gave Hippolyta a start, and moreso when Brock replied, "Yes, dear, all seems to be in order. You have my permission   
to undertake this, but I'll expect regular reports."   
"I wouldn't dream of doing otherwise."   
"She's an impressive specimen," he said as if Hippolyta had no grasp of speech. "I just hope she'll fit in with the rest of your girls. Some   
of them haven't gotten on well with gargoyles in the past."   
"I can handle my girls, darling. It's our boy that I have trouble with."   
Brock grimaced, making him look all the more dour and gnomelike. "Don't remind me. He's called nearly every day about the Bellingham   
situation. Just once, it would be nice if he'd offer a solution, even a suggestion, but all I get is such a selection of whines I feel as if I'm at one   
of my nephew's show-off dinner parties."   
"That reminds me," Diamond said. "It's our turn to host the Political Action fundraiser ball this year. Do you have any recommendations for   
guests?"   
"Let's make it interesting," Brock said, folding his hands across the expensively-suited bulge of his paunch. "See if you can get the Yale   
woman. She's always good for a few laughs."   
"Good idea. Now, if we're done here, I'd like to introduce Hippolyta to the others."   
"Of course." His gaze shifted back to Hippolyta. "Welcome aboard. I trust we'll find this to be a mutually-agreeable arrangement."   
She nodded, not quite able to bring herself to actually thank the man. The oaths she'd just sworn and the documents she'd just signed made   
it clear that while she may have trouble taking things seriously, these people showed no similar problem.   
Diamond led her out of Brock's office, a groaningly opulent yet somehow impersonal affair of mahogany – and down a hall papered in   
flocked velvet and floored in hardwood. It was all a far cry from her subterranean prison-cell, which was many stories below this.   
The house itself was huge and grand but, like the office, impersonal. It gave the impression of having been carefully styled to duplicate some   
other place, while falling short on some fundamental level. It lacked … it lacked a _soul_.   
It was also eerily quiet. A place such as this screamed out for servants, unobtrusive and forgettable but _there_ if one bothered to pay   
attention, like the constant rushing of the surf on Avalon. Yet there were none, and the entire building could have been empty but for the three of   
them.   
As if sensing her thoughts, Diamond commented, "We're not a large enough organization yet to really make the best use of this white elephant."   
It took Hippolyta a moment or two of looking for pachyderms to realize the woman was referring to the house. She wasn't sure how to   
respond, so said nothing.   
They took the elevator down, though not so far down as the containment level, which was where Hippolyta had been staying. Now that she   
was sworn in or signed on or whatever, she assumed that she would be moving to more congenial quarters. Perhaps. She remained unclear on   
that part, and was not sure how to ask.   
The underground floors did not even make a token attempt at opulence. Pure function was the rule down here, function and budgetary   
concerns. As this was where much of the Coalition's work got done, there were more people in evidence. They tended to give Hippolyta a wide   
berth but no one addressed her or said anything about her in her earshot.   
"I should warn you about my girls," Diamond said as she paused to allow a machine scan her palm, her eyes, and take a small sample of blood   
from a fingertip pinprick. "Like you, they've all come to us under rather unusual circumstances."   
"Your mate said that they have no love for gargoyles?"   
"My what? My mate? Oh, good heavens! You mean Winston? We're no longer married. It's just that those old habits die hard."   
Hippolyta thought of their bantering and contrasted that with what she'd seen of the ex-mates Jacob and Tourmaline, and scratched her brow   
ridge in confusion. But rather than try and puzzle out the peculiarities of humans, she let it go and followed Diamond into a brightly-lit, locker-lined   
room.   
The air was warm and moist, steam rising from what appeared to be a bubbling hot spring in the corner. More steam clouded the glass of a   
bench-filled room. She saw nozzles in tiled stalls, basins, mirrors.   
From around a dogleg hallway came the sounds of thuds and punches, and voices raised in exhortations and taunts. As they headed that way,   
an eerie feral howl set Hippolyta's teeth and nerves on edge. She was about to spring forward but Diamond laid a hand on her arm.   
"It's all right … it's just my girls."   
The weird cry was followed by a strange crackling bellowing noise. Orange light flared briefly on the tiled wall. Next came a clanging crash   
and a spate of curses the likes of which Hippolyta had never heard before. It was made all the more unusual by the fact that it was in a female   
voice.   
"Leave off already," replied another, in an accent that sounded so like that of Princess Katherine that Hippolyta's pulse leapt. "She got ye fair   
an' square."   
"It's not my fault," protested the curser, as Diamond and Hippolyta entered the room.   
So many sights hit Hippolyta's eyes that she didn't know where to look first. The room itself was a fairly standard gymnasium setup with some   
odd and incomprehensible additions, but it faded into insignificance as her gaze happened upon the woman who'd been cursing.   
Or, at least, on first view she _guessed_ it was a woman …   
The being before her was part flesh and part shining metallic gold, built like some nightmare centaur with two wheels instead of legs. Where arms   
should have been was one outthrust cannon and one freakishly elongated hand tipped with long razor quills. Her head was mostly human, topped   
and framed with wild brown hair, but one oversized red orb replaced her left eye and plates of metal were fused with her cheekbones.   
"Ever since I picked up that virus from my dinkweed brother, my system's been all screwed over," this apparition complained, her voice at once   
nasal and peevish and husky.   
"I'm sure that's more disgusting information than we needed t' know," said the one with the accent. She was a well-built human all dressed in red   
and black, her face concealed from brow to mouth by a cutaway hood-mask that left her blond ponytailed hair flying free.   
Something snarled in what sounded like agreement, and Hippolyta found herself staring at what she first took to be a tiger. Then she noted the   
feminine, humanoid shape to it, and the lack of stripes on the reddish fur, and the face that mixed feline and human traits. Most prominent of all were   
the teeth, great sharp ivory fangs jutting down from the upper jaw. After that, the slitted, flame-hued eyes. A tangle of disheveled orange and red   
streaked hair tumbled down the creature's back, and what seemed to be smoke was curling from her clawed hands.   
The metal-and-flesh centauress began to undergo an incredible transformation, wheels shifting to legs in shining spike-heeled boots, arms becoming   
more-or-less ordinary arms.   
"Oh yeah?" she sneered at the blonde woman. "That's saying something coming from _you_ … I read all about your family. 'Fess up, toots … you   
and those hunky-sexy brothers of yours, I bet you really knew how to put the 'fun' in 'dysfunctional.'"   
Black-gloved fists clenched and her accent thickened. "Shet yer cake-hole, ye stupid fem-bot!"   
"Ooo-hoo-ooo!" Now fully transformed, the other fluttered her hands on either side of her head, miming fright. "Tough talk, Blondie, but whatcha   
got to back it up?"   
"I'll show ye --"   
"Girls, girls," said Diamond, delicately pinching the bridge of her nose above her dainty gold spectacles. "We have a new arrival, so could we at   
least _try_ to be civilized?"   
They broke off and turned to look, all staring at Hippolyta with varying degrees of curiosity and animosity.   
"Hippolyta," Diamond went on cordially, "these are my other girls. Hunter, Hyena, and Hellcat. Girls, this is Hippolyta, the newest member of the   
team. Put her through her paces, would you, Hunter? Let's see what she can do." 

** 

It was only after she'd unconcernedly stripped that Hippolyta remembered the humans and their strange taboos and prudishness. She flushed   
and glanced around, but none of her cohorts seemed to be paying her any undue mind.   
And come to think, only one of them truly classified as 'human' …   
Dropping her halter and strap-skirt on a bench, she dunked a talon in the seething, steaming water and satisfied herself that the bubbles came   
only from air. With a groan of appreciation, she descended the short steps and lowered herself onto a bench until she was immersed to the chin.   
Imagine, she'd thought herself to be in some sort of fighting condition! The workout that Hunter had put her through left Hippolyta weak and   
shaky and wringing with sweat from pinions to tail. Her every move had been analyzed and criticized, until she felt like the clumsiest hatchling ever   
to take wing. In areas of strength, speed, endurance, and agility, she had been tested until she felt she was at the breaking point.   
Then, when she was ready to collapse and not budge until dawn locked her in a heap of stone, she was bade to face off against Hunter and   
demonstrate her combat skills.   
At first, Hippolyta tried to tell herself that the only reason she fared so poorly was because she was worn out. But after witnessing the blonde   
woman in action, she was forced to admit that Hunter would have given her a grievous challenge even were she fresh as the dusk.   
When the grueling ordeal was finally done, she'd been allowed to rest and watch as it was time for a rematch betwixt Hyena and Hellcat. Their   
abilities astonished her, from the versatility of Hyena's robotic body to the jets of flame that Hellcat could shoot from her palms. The fiery feline   
never spoke, only growled or snarled or caterwauled like a beast, but there was a strange intelligence in those molten eyes.   
"So what's your story, anyway?" Hyena asked. She, too, had removed her scant bits of clothing, exposing a patchwork of fleshly nudity and   
sculpted metal. The effect was made most bizarre as she donned a pink plastic shower cap dotted with big yellow flowers. "What's a nice 'goyle   
like you doing in a mess like this?"   
"I had no choice."   
"Pfuh. Join the club. Join the goddam club." Sounding more resigned than bitter, she stood beneath a showerhead in a separate stall, and sighed   
contentedly as what seemed to be high-quality heated oil sprayed down on her and made her glisten.   
"What mean you by that?"   
Hunter, swathed in a towel that did not conceal the strong lines of her body, sat on a bench between lockers and flipped her hair over her   
shoulder to comb it. "Only that none o' us had a choice. What d' they hold over ye?"   
"My life …" Realizing how selfish and cowardly that must sound, she added, "And the fates of other gargoyles, should the world learn that   
one of us did murder on humans. I could not let my actions ruin all they've striven to accomplish."   
Hyena perked up. "Murder, not bad!" She was scouring herself with a tuft of woolen steel, and the scree it made on the metal of her legs was   
painful on the ears. "So you're not one of old Goliath's goody-two-wings clan?"   
"You know great Goliath?" First Toby Jessec's toys, then the article in that magazine, and now this! He was legend enough on Avalon, but to   
be so famed in the outer world …   
"We've both had our run-ins wi' him," Hunter said dryly.   
"Diamond did tell me that some of you were none too fond of gargoyles," Hippolyta said, not eager to bring up a sore spot but reasoning best   
to get it over with.   
"Why, just because every one I've ever met has tried to turn me into scrap?" Hyena laughed with the sound of a rusty nail being pried from a   
plank.   
"My family's crusade was against _one_ gargoyle," Hunter said, her tone perhaps meant to be reassuring but so filled with a lifetime's worth of   
pain that it was hard to tell. "We were overzealous an' made enemies o' quite a few more while the one we sought kept slipping away. In the end,   
it nearly cost both o' my brothers their lives. But I've nothing against ye unless ye give me reason."   
"Fair enough, and I shall endeavor not to. But why are you here? Why are we all here? What do they mean for us to do?"   
"The dirty work none of _them_ want," Hyena said. "The suicide missions. We're expendable, so get used to it. I don't know about Blondie   
there, but I'm here because these people can keep me operational. I work for them, they keep me running, no questions asked. Anyone else   
would throw my butt in the slam."   
Hunter nodded. "Expendable … because as far as the rest o' the world's concerned, we're already good as dead. Or might as well be. For   
me, I'm here because o' my brothers. One's in a maximum-security physical rehabilitation ward, an' may never be fit enough t' live on his own   
even when his sentence is up. The other … that's too long a story."   
"And her?" Hippolyta glanced at Hellcat, who was perched on top of a row of lockers, smoothing her shower-wet fur with long swipes of her   
rough tongue.   
"We're na sure," confided Hunter in a low voice. "No one's ever told us much about her, but my guess is she's some sort o' mutate."   
"Better living through genetic engineering," snorted Hyena. "Ever since crazy old Dr. Sevarius whipped up his formula, every Johnny Test-tube   
in the country's been trying to do the same. You know the Coalition's got themselves a few secret think-tanks of brainy nerds trying to build a   
better tomorrow."   
"What about ye? How'd ye come t' be here?" Hunter asked.   
"Some of us split off from our clan," Hippolyta said. "Seeking a new home of our own, seeking adventure. We got more than we'd bargained   
for and ran afoul of the Coalition. We interfered in one of their plans, and I slew six of their men. But when I was knocked from the sky and from   
consciousness, they captured me. My clan believes me to be dead, and thus they must have gone on without me. But there are others here, most   
of them, who would see me killed for my crime. If I do not do as Diamond wishes, that will be my fate."   
"Tough old world," Hyena said without a note of sympathy. "Life's a bitch, yadda-yadda. So now you're one of us. Isn't that just the coziest   
thing?"   
She turned off her oil-shower and clanked on metal heels, leaving slick puddles as she went.   
"Ye're dripping, ye careless bint," Hunter snapped. She unwound her towel and tossed it at the biggest of the puddles.   
"Yeah, right … you spend all night beating the snot out of us but God forbid someone should slip and fall and get a boo-boo." Hyena showed   
Hunter a long golden quill of a central finger, then shut herself into the steam room.   
Remembering something Hunter had said, Hippolyta asked, "Your family sought one gargoyle in particular? Surely not great Goliath …?"   
"Nay. One we called the Demon, or Demona."   
"I know of her. She once attacked our clan, though they say she was enspelled at the time."   
"She needed no enspelling t' torment my family for fifteen generations," Hunter said harshly. "Thanks t' her, my brother Jason is gone. Thanks   
t' her son, my brother Jon nearly died."   
"Her son? Do you mean Jericho?"   
"You know _him_ too?"   
"He was part of our clan, before leaving to be with his mother. He fought your brother?"   
"He _gutted_ my brother," Hunter corrected. "Jon lived, but it might have been better for him if he hadn't. He got peritonitis – an infection o'   
the insides. He can barely walk, can hardly eat or drink without agony. An' Jason … I knew Jason was having troubles, but after seeing what   
Jericho did t' Jon … it drove him crazy. He went after the Demon on Devil's Night two years ago, and they say he took the both o' them into   
Hell t' put an end t' her evil."   
"I'm sorry for your family and your loss."   
"Well." Hunter finished combing her hair and began putting on clothes. "The Coalition canna help Jason, wherever he is, but they can help take   
care o' Jon an' his son Bryce. They're all I've got left, and I'm the only hope they have."   
With that, she headed for the row of sinks while buttoning her blouse, leaving Hippolyta to muse on her words as she emerged from the steaming   
water. 

**   
** 

**_Continued in Chapter Two -- Necrivore_**   



	2. Necrivore

Bad Girls   
by Christine Morgan 

christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org 

Chapter Two -- Necrivore 

**_September, 2003_**   


"And how are we settling in?" Diamond asked. "All friends now?"   
"Don't push your luck," Hyena muttered. "Nobody's killed each other. Good enough?"   
"That'll do."   
Hippolyta entered the briefing room with trepidation. It had been three weeks since her introduction to the other members of the team   
that had no name (though it was alternately referred to by various members of the Coalition as 4-H, Redemption Squad, and "those bitches   
of Diamond's.")   
In that time, all of them keeping to her nocturnal schedule for greatest convenience, she had trained as she'd never trained before. They   
all had. "Just think of it as boot-camp," Diamond had said, and once the term had been explained to Hippolyta, she'd done her best to see   
it that way.   
And so they had trained. Sometimes with the regular operatives, more often alone in the catacombs beneath the mansion. Learning the   
capabilities and weaknesses of themselves and each other did not quite make them friends but let them develop a very healthy respect.   
Hippolyta, already in good condition, had honed her body until she could get through even the most rigorous courses. In straight hand-to-   
hand, she could now best Hunter three times out of five, though the uncannily lithe Hellcat was still her better in the martial arts.   
She was being tutored in the uses of a dizzying number of new weapons, quite the far cry from Avalon where the choices had been limited   
to bows, swords, knives, and staves. Simulators helped familiarize her with driving and piloting a host of vehicles.   
Sandwiched amid the training were lessons on a wide range of topics – setting and disarming explosives, using and bypassing security   
systems, an overview of biological and chemical warfare nearly frightening enough to keep one awake days, and a hodgepodge of other   
information. Her mind felt stuffed, glutted on new knowledge, yet she'd only scratched the surface.   
She had also gotten to know her new companions, and like Hyena said, none of them had killed each other yet and that seemed to be the   
best they could ask. The verbal sniping from Hyena was a regular occurrence. Hellcat seemed to only tolerate the rest of them and was prone   
to lashing out with claws, saber-teeth, or bursts of fire when provoked. Of them all, Hippolyta felt kindliest toward Hunter, but even that   
relationship was strained and without much warmth.   
Then again, they weren't here to be friends. They were here to do a job, to work together. Their lives would depend on each others'   
alertness and abilities, not necessarily on any sort of sisterly affection.   
Still, for better or worse, she was one of them now. They were the closest thing to a clan she had, and she was doing her best to view them   
in that light. Not all was peaceable among rookery siblings … witness Tourmaline or Zachariah.   
Diamond looked them over with a critical, vaguely motherly eye as they took their places around the oval table. Hippolyta still felt odd in the   
new garments they'd provided, but the mirror had told her, and she had to agree, that they suited her.   
In place of her halter, she wore a tight low-backed vest of a black shiny material that contrasted strikingly with her copper skin. The vest was   
filled with an ablative gel to serve as armor that could stop blade or bullet – provided a blade or bullet managed to hit the comparatively scanty   
vest instead of her much-more-visible flesh.   
A wide belt cinched her bare midriff. A 'utility belt,' Hyena had called it with a sneer. Each of them had one, even Hellcat, and they included   
a lock-release minigun, a coil of restraint-wire, a canister of sedative gas, and other potentially useful items. In Hippolyta's case, the belt also   
supported a new quiver, full of light but strong arrows tipped with an assortment of points.   
To go along with the arrows, she boasted a new bow that paled her old one into insignificance. Made of some redoubled plastisteel, it had a   
pull that a strong human male couldn't handle, and with it she could sink a shaft six inches into cinderblock. It was as deadly-looking a thing as   
she'd ever beheld, sleekly black and banded in gold.   
Her new skirt rode low on her hips. It was made of the same stuff as the vest, and fell in a down-triangle panel to end in a point just above   
her knee-spurs. The sides were cut very high, allowing for freedom of movement and showing flashes of leg with every step. In the back, the   
panel was split into two triangles to admit her tail.   
A band of black-enameled metal girded her left ankle. This was a tracking device to allow the Coalition to know where she was at all times,   
because it was monitored from a false moon flying high above the earth. It could also be used to deliver a powerful, punishing electrical volt … a   
precaution and disciplinary measure on the part of her so-called 'employers.'   
These last, they all wore. Even Hellcat, who spurned all other clothing, had such a band affixed to her leg. Hyena had objected the most   
strenuously, out of concern that it would scramble her circuits. She maintained that she would suffer more than the rest of them if it was triggered,   
to which Diamond had merely coolly replied that she was assessed as the one most likely to _need_ an inducement. To that, Hyena only made a   
face and mumbled something reprehensible.   
"We're fine," Hunter said. "Ready. We'll na be more ready. D'ye have something for us t' do?"   
"As a matter of fact, I do," Diamond said. She picked up a remote control – Hippolyta's understanding of modern technology had advanced   
apace and she now felt quite familiar with such things, taking them as much a matter of course as she once had Avalon's magic.   
A woven tapestry was on the wall behind Diamond's chair. It was disturbing, depicting a golden-armored figure wielding a scythe or sickle,   
standing triumphantly atop the ruins of a pyramid. At the base, on jagged stones, were the shattered remains of what looked like a great jeweled   
eye.   
The tapestry rose, rolling up into a case with a muted clattering noise. Behind it was a screen, blank white.   
"Better call the cable guy," Hyena said.   
Hellcat hissed warningly at her.   
"What d'ye want o' us?" Hunter asked.   
Diamond exhaled softly. "Nothing much … just saving the world."   
"Oh, is that all?" Hyena yawned. "And what do we do _after_ breakfast?"   
"We are at the point of last resort," Diamond said. "Normally, I would never want to send you off on something like this, especially for your   
first mission, but we don't have much of a choice. Time is running out."   
"Ye dinna need t' convince us," Hunter said, flatly and without emotion. "Ye've already got us by the short hairs, so tell us what ye need and   
let us be on our way."   
"Very well." She pressed a button.   
On the screen, a photo of an object appeared. It looked to be a small silvery wedge-shaped robot mounted on tank-treads, with a mechanical   
arm fitted with a three-pronged grasping tool. A black box winking with lights and dials was mounted on the top.   
"This is Remy-6," Diamond said. "A remote 'bot similar to that used by the space program for the Mars missions. However, in Remy's case,   
it's been sent quite a bit further from home."   
Hyena giggled coyly, a truly disconcerting thing. "Kinda cute!"   
Hippolyta felt a chill that came wholly from within. "You don't mean to send us _there_!" she gasped. "Through the magic portal and into the   
world of the dead-eaters?"   
The rest of her team looked at her as if she were insane, but Diamond nodded somberly.   
"That is precisely what we mean, though of course I wouldn't have put it in those terms."   
"Will ye put it in terms the rest o' us can understand?" Hunter requested with strained politeness. "Because so far, I dinna much like the sound   
o' this."   
"Of course." Diamond rose and strolled the room while she spoke, the images on the screen changing to reflect what she was talking about. "A   
few years ago, advancements in quantum theory made it possible to open frequency wavelengths between our world and others, all connected by   
threads of quantum foam. I won't bore you with the technical details, as it very nearly takes a physics degree to even pronounce some of the terms,   
but what it boils down to is this: it became possible to send and receive radio and electromagnetic transmissions across these openings, and our   
goal was to see if it was possible to transport solid items as well."   
A picture appeared of a man that Hippolyta recognized, though he was in much better condition in the photo. When last she'd seen him, he'd   
been facedown in the mud, pummeled into a lumpy bag of meat by Ezekiel.   
"Dr. Gerald Smythe," Diamond said. "Project leader for Operation Doorway, author of its success … and failure. He developed a method for   
opening a connective quantum path between these places – dimensions, realities, what-have-you. But these openings were of extremely short   
duration, and unpredictable. Dr. Smythe realized that in order to keep one open, he needed to have a transmitter on the other side as well."   
"That's where the robot comes in?" Hunter asked.   
"Yes. Remy-6 was the sixth remote that was sent across, and the one that successfully made it. The pathway was stabilized, enabling us to send   
in a few other 'bots, remotes with cameras and video recorders, 'bots with scientific sampling equipment. We wanted to get a good look at this   
other world, see if it was habitable for humans. When it seemed to be so, Dr. Smythe started sending lab animals across."   
"And then people," Hippolyta said. "Who were infected, became monsters, and had to be slaughtered."   
"Not quite," Diamond said. "We didn't get to the point of sending human volunteers. Something happened before we could. Something over   
there came through, and infected Dr. Smythe and his assistants."   
"Something … what do you mean, _something_?" Hyena demanded. "What was it? Don't keep us in suspense here."   
"Unfortunately, 'something' is the best I can do." A video began playing on the screen while Diamond narrated. "Nothing shows up on the tapes   
except for a faint mist, here. Moments later, Dr. Smythe and the others simply fall down unconscious. By the time properly protection-suited staff   
can reach them, they're burning with fever, incoherent, babbling about red eyes in the gloom. They were put under immediate high-level quarantine,   
in the Tank."   
"How did Smythe escape?" Hippolyta asked. "Were you not watching him?"   
"During his more lucid moments, Smythe ranted about the project and the necessity of bringing it to a close. We assumed he must have had   
contacts among the guards, sympathizers who helped him escape and doctored the video record."   
Now the screen was showing a scene of blood and chaos. Even Hellcat, who had been paying more attention to chewing between her claws,   
stopped and watched as the massacre played out.   
"Four days after the incident, only a few hours after the disappearance of Dr. Smythe," Diamond went on, "this happened. The other two   
detainees underwent sudden transformations and killed two staff members, wounding a third. The survivor, a guard, was placed in an isolation   
chamber and kept tranquilized, in case the infection was contagious. But the main priority was finding Dr. Smythe before he could hurt anyone,   
spread the infection, or expose the project. We now know that he made an effort to contact Dr. Michelle Jessec, a former colleague of his, but   
the same transformation affected him. He was subsequently killed by gargoyles."   
Hunter raised a querying eyebrow and Hippolyta shook her head. "My rookery brother Ezekiel. I … I missed."   
"After Dr. Smythe's disappearance but before the transformations," Diamond said, "we'd decided that we needed another physicist immediately,   
to evaluate what had happened. Efforts were made to recruit Dr. Jessec --"   
Here, despite it all, Hippolyta was unable to restrain a chuff of indignation, knowing as she did about their methods of recruitment.   
"—and she was given some preliminary information. But thanks to the gargoyles, she has not been seen since. Which left us without a scientist to   
lead the project."   
"What?" Hyena rolled her eyes. "You mean to tell me that even after all this crazy, deadly stuff went down, you didn't can the project? Lemme   
guess – big money involved, right?"   
"Believe it or not, money wasn't the main issue," Diamond said. "The main issue was, and is, that we don't dare turn off the Doorway on this side.   
None of us are qualified, and we haven't been able to recruit anyone with the right set of skills."   
"So yank the damn plug!"   
"If we do that, we risk causing a rift. We could rip a hole in reality, one too big to be contained in the lab. As long as Remy-6 is on the other side   
transmitting, the Doorway can't safely be closed."   
"You mean for us to go and fetch it back for you?" Hippolyta asked. "Into this realm of monsters?"   
Hunter curled a fist before her mouth. "That's what they mean, aye. How many more have ye already sent, then? How many have gone and failed?"   
"Six," Diamond said bluntly. "Two teams of three. They never returned. We haven't risked another trip, but the situation is becoming more urgent.   
The Doorway device wasn't meant to be left on for this long. It is showing signs of malfunction. Our best estimate is that we have less than forty-eight   
hours before it collapses, and if that happens …" she trailed off ominously.   
"What about the surviving guard?" Hunter asked. "Was the infection spread t' him as well?"   
"Yes. We've been able to keep him sedated, but every nine and a half days, give or take, he undergoes the same transformation. We've been   
unable to find a cure. In all likelihood, he'll have to be terminated. Another operative, the one who discovered Dr. Smythe's body, came into direct   
physical contact with the corpse but was not bitten. He has been in quarantine ever since with no signs of transformation."   
"What about us, then?" Hunter asked. "Ye'd have us go after this remote o' yers, but what's t' keep us from being infected?"   
"We'll take all possible precautions, of course. Germ-suits have been designed for each of you, and you'll be thoroughly decontaminated upon   
your return."   
"Sounds simple enough," Hyena said. "We go over there, smash the cute 'bot, and come home. Without getting turned into ugly white cyclops-   
things. Piece of cake."   
"No, no, no," Diamond said reprovingly. "You _could_ smash Remy-6, granted, but if you do that …"   
"We'll be trapped on the other side," Hunter finished. 

** 

They were taken to the Bellingham site by road, inside a vehicle that resembled a motor home on the outside and a rolling laboratory on   
the inside.   
It startled Hippolyta to find out how far she'd been transported while she was an unconscious captive, because the manor house was   
located several hours south, east of Seattle. She was only afforded snatches of glimpses of the countryside, as for most of the trip they were   
kept in the back.   
Each of them had been presented with their germ-suits, made of a lightweight but strong silvery-white substance. They would have enough   
breathable air for twelve hours, as well as tubes offering water and a concentrated nutrient solution. Ear pieces and microphones would let them   
communicate, and each of them was given a small tracking device to home in on the signals emitted by Remy-6. Compartments around the   
midsection held emergency gear – a light source, a roll of sealer-tape, first-aid kit, and other things they hoped not to need.   
"What are we supposed to do if we run into hostiles?" Hyena groused. "Bad enough I have to stay humanoid for the duration, but I can't   
use any of my weapons through this stupid thing."   
"We have other weapons," Hunter said. "How'd ye manage before yer upgrade?"   
Hippolyta, in a suit designed to allow for wings and tail and large taloned gargoyle-feet, was prepared to rely solely on her bow.   
Hellcat growled, perhaps realizing that her teeth, claws, and flame-jets would be useless as well, unless she wanted to rip or melt a hole right   
through her protective suit. But the garment was light and flexible enough to let her move unhindered, so they would still have the benefit of her   
lightning agility.   
The Bellingham site of Coalition Technologies was on first appearance a modest office-industrial complex, set well back from the highway. But   
like everything else within the organization, what was on the surface was only stage dressing, and the true business was conducted secretly below-   
ground.   
The vehicle drove into a garage large enough to quarter planes, and then onto an elevator platform that carried it swiftly down into the bowels   
of the earth. Their team remained as they were, getting last-minute tips and suggestions on their gear from the operatives who'd outfitted them.   
The attitude from all concerned seemed to be that the four of them were gone geese, good as dead, and nobody cared. They would be more   
distressed by the loss of the expensive equipment. Even Diamond, in saying farewell, gave the impression of having written them off.   
It rankled Hippolyta more with each passing mile and moment, and she began wishing to survive not only for her own sake but to show them   
all. She sensed a similar resolve in the others.   
They were taken through a series of complex security measures and finally presented to the division director, 'Winchell' Brock.   
"Jeez, is this the best Diamond could do?" were the first words out of his mouth.   
He was far younger than Hippolyta had expected, a sallow and thin-faced youth with a perpetually petulant expression. Had she not been told   
of his parentage, she never would have believed it, for he resembled neither Diamond nor her miserly-gnome ex-mate.   
With him were two operatives, a tall cold-eyed blonde in a steel-grey jumpsuit, and a calculatedly average-looking man dressed professionally   
in midnight blue. The latter, Hippolyta thought she recognized from the night of the attack, and by the way his gaze narrowed when he saw her,   
she was fairly sure she was right.   
"Diamond wouldn't have sent them if they weren't up for the job," one of the humans who'd accompanied them said. Hippolyta knew him only   
as Op. 17, Diamond's personal lackey.   
"Unless she is trying to dispose of them," said the cold-eyed blond in a clipped accent.   
Hyena sauntered toward her. "Well, well, well. You do get around, don't you, Inge? Looks like it's been a downward spiral for someone   
who used to kiss rich man Xanatos' cute little ass."   
"_Ja_," Inge replied. "Now I am reduced to supervising _you_."   
"Come on, cut the crap," Brock the Younger said. "Diamond just better not blame me if you four get toasted."   
"We're aware of the risks," Hunter said.   
"How spiffy for you. Mirano, Op. 11, take them on down."   
Op. 11 turned out to be the Inge-woman, and as they proceeded deeper into the recesses of the underground fortress, Hyena persisted in   
taking conversational jabs at her. Hippolyta tensed in anticipation of the moment that combustion would occur, but with an icy aplomb that she   
couldn't help but admire, Inge held her peace.   
At long last, they reached the lab which housed the Doorway. Despite all of their briefings and videotapes, despite knowing better, Hippolyta   
still expected it to look like the magical portal of her first understanding. Massive hewn stone, perhaps, carved all around with mystical runes and   
glowing with an eldritch light.   
The reality was far less impressive, though the same couldn't be said for the defenses that the Coalition had erected. Through triply-   
reinforced walls of glass – well, of walls that were layers of clear crysteel compound sandwiched around an inert dense invisible gas, or so   
Mirano explained – they could see the airlock and decontamination chambers leading to the lab proper.   
Inside, computers hummed and gadgets beeped, and the focus of it all was a plain hollow cone laid on its side, with the wide end wired up   
to a bunch of unidentifiable machines. Its narrow end, supported by a metal cradle that looked suitable for resting a ship in dry-dock, pointed   
at the rear of the room. Wisps and threads of fog, not that much different from the ones that heralded the arrival of Avalon's mists, issued at   
irregular intervals from the open end of the cone. The aperture was perhaps five feet in diameter, which meant stooping for any of them except   
the crouching Hellcat.   
A pale, unhealthy-looking man was waiting outside of the airlock. He had a bush of curly ginger-red hair that made his pallor all the more   
extreme, and wore his white lab coat as if it were a costume, and an uncomfortable one at that. He gaped at them.   
"Dr. Laine," Mirano said. "Any changes?"   
"Nuh-no," he stammered, staring from Hippolyta to Hellcat and back again as if he couldn't decide which was the stranger thing at which to   
gawk. "The readings show the same rate of deterioration. It'll last another twenty-four, twenty-six hours tops."   
"I thought you were fresh out of egghead scientists," Hyena said snidely.   
"Dr. Laine is a graduate student from the University of Washington here in Bellingham," Mirano said. "The best we could do under the circum-   
stances. He can't operate the Doorway, but he can at least monitor it for us."   
"Peachy."   
"Enough small talk," Hunter said brusquely, and Hippolyta suddenly knew that the nominal leader of their group was afraid. Afraid of that portal,   
afraid of this mission, but determined to go through with it nonetheless. Hunter pulled her helmet-hood into place and snapped the seals. "Let's   
get this over with."   
One by one, they passed through the airlocks and into the lab. When it was Hippolyta's turn, she reflexively held her breath as pressurized air   
puffed around her, flattening the fabric of her germ-suit against her body. Her ears made a funny popping that was more feeling than sound, and   
at once her head felt lighter.   
Eerie standing in the lab where three humans had been infected. Although it was clean and well-lit, although they had only fainted here and been   
taken to the place called the Tank before transforming and dying, it felt haunted. Couldn't have felt more so if it had been dank and gloomy and   
dripping with raddled cobwebs, the floor strewn with rat-gnawed bones.   
A rash of shivers swept over her, and she made herself stop with that line of comparisons. This was going to be bad enough without   
imagining haunts.   
She was alone with the draw and release of her own respiration, until Hunter's tinny voice sounded in her ear. It made Hippolyta jump,   
for the effect was of Hunter standing at her elbow when in fact she was across the room.   
"Are ye all ready?"   
"Who's first, or do we play rock-paper-scissors?" Hyena, her features distorted by the curve of her faceplate, grinned a manic grin at   
Hippolyta. "You can be rock."   
"I'll go first," Hunter said. "But stick together. When we get through, we've got twelve hours t' find this Remy and come back before our air   
runs out."   
Their helmets included a digital display, which had begun a backward countdown of their air supply the moment they'd snapped the seals. In   
addition, Hippolyta saw that she could keep track of her body temperature and heart rate.   
11:54:13 …   
Hunter cradled her recoilless rifle in the crook of her arm. Her chest rose and fell once in a deep breath, and then she ducked her head and   
stepped into the cone. Crackles of orange and white energy swarmed inward from the sides and danced around her body.   
The effect was uncanny … as she slowly walked in, she seemed to dwindle in their sight. It was as if she was moving away from them,   
diminishing in the distance, but the length of the cone could not have been more than fifteen feet.   
"Fog's thickening," Hunter reported, and by now she looked only three feet tall, a child-shape with a toy gun. "Getting dark."   
11:52:48 …   
"Flickers o' red … like embers, like fireflies …" her voice was fading, and she was the size of a doll now, dozens of yards away.   
"Weee-eerd," Hyena murmured.   
11:52:09 …   
"Eyes!" It was faint and tiny, but full of alarm. "Dear God, they're _eyes_!"   
Hunter blinked out of existence.   
"Come on!" Hippolyta said, and before trepidation could stop her, folded her wings tight over her shoulders and entered the cone.   
Orange and white, heatless lightning tickling at her with long spindly fingers. Ahead, she could see the fog, and all resemblance to Avalon had   
ceased. This was dark, murky, almost more like smoke but for the quality of chill that it seemed to hold.   
She glanced back to see if Hyena and Hellcat were following, and her nerves were jolted by surprise. She was still the same, but the room   
behind her had grown to immense proportions. It was stretched out in all directions, up to towering heights, out to panoramic widths, and the   
colossal forms of the others were like monolithic sculptures of the ancients.   
Facing forward again, she saw that the fog was gathering close around her, and blotting out the light. And yes, there _were_ flickers of red in it,   
fleeting and swift, like fireflies. Or, indeed, come to think of it, like eyes … like the ruby-blazing eyes of her sisters in anger …   
Except they weren't in pairs …   
"Hey, what's --"   
Far away, a dim and miles-gone call from Hyena, and then she heard nothing.   
The fog was everywhere. Fae-lights of orange and white twined up her legs and tail, along her arms, like creeper vines, like veins, throbbing with   
tingling power. Eyes, coming closer, and now she could see them clearly. Bulging and blood-colored. Shining with a flat and mindless loathing. Eyes   
seemingly attached to nothing at all, floating in the fog without sockets. Lidless, lashless, without bodies.   
"—are ye??"   
_Crack!_   
A rifleshot.   
And then she was through, stumbling as the even slope of the cone gave way to a rough expanse of white. She recovered quickly and saw Hunter,   
swinging the barrel of the rifle after a fleet, leaping shape.   
_Crack!_   
But the shape had sprung to safety behind a hillock – no, not behind, it passed _through_ the hillock as though intangible. Wondering if this magic   
was how Dr. Smythe had escaped against all odds, Hippolyta had an arrow to the string swifter than swift. She moved to Hunter's side.   
"I'm here!" she said.   
Her first thought upon seeing the terrain was of snow and ice, of glacial expanses and frozen tundra. But her helmet displayed the outside   
temperature as well, and it read at a tolerable level even for humans. And when she walked, her feet first crunched through a gritty crust and then   
puffed up clouds of chalky smoke. Fog, thinner than that through which she'd come, issued here and there from crevices.   
"They're all around us," Hunter said. "I got that one, but the rest scattered."   
She pointed with the gun barrel, and Hippolyta saw a corpse sprawled akimbo, like a beached starfish. It was tall, more than half again their   
height, but scrawny, gantrylike, emaciated. Totally hairless and naked, it seemed more like an age-old mummy than something that had been alive   
only moments before … were it not for the spreading lake of watery reddish blood soaking into the pale soil.   
"What is it?" Hippolyta asked.   
"I dinna know!"   
The air nearby suddenly thickened, and Hippolyta's ears popped again as Hyena materialized through a wavery wall of dense fog.   
As if it had been waiting for just such an opportunity, another of the creatures came vaulting through a hillock, all gangly limbs and long neck   
and grasping hands.   
Hippolyta saw its face clearly as it leapt at Hyena's back, saw the deep creases and lines running from its flat pate to its jutting angle of a chin.   
Saw two eyes, not red but yellow-green, and a lipless, toothless mouth from which a tonguelike proboscis flapped.   
She fired.   
Only then did she consider whether a creature that could pass unhindered through solid matter would be bothered by an arrow.   
Hyena, seeing Hippolyta wheel her way, flung herself flat and jumped back up all in one synchronized motion. "It's only me, you --" she broke   
off as the body hit the ground, arrow neatly centered between its eyes.   
So much for that … whatever else, they _could_ be shot. And that was really all that mattered.   
Hellcat came out running on all fours, jaw working behind her faceplate. She skidded to a curving halt, leaving a swath of scuffmarks in the crust,   
and if she'd had a tail, it would have been whipping side to side.   
"What the blue hell?" Hyena cried, kicking the dead creature. "These don't look like the ones they showed us!"   
"Circle up!" ordered Hunter, and they complied.   
They were at the bottom of some sort of valley or crater, the land around them rising in a large shallow bowl. Hillocks and ridges marched up   
the sides, affording countless hiding places for the rest of the spindly creatures.   
The sky overhead was featureless and black. No stars could be seen, nor any clouds. A low atonal wind, somehow empty and desolate, rose   
and fell like the wails of a flock of grieving widows.   
"What is this stuff on the ground?" Hyena scooped up a fistful of it and squeezed, the gritty substance crumbling away through her gloved fingers.   
"Alkaline, I think," Hunter said, poking the crust with her rifle. "A salt plain."   
Beneath the crust, the soil was dusty and grey. Hippolyta didn't care for the way their feet sank into it, for they couldn't know that they'd find   
solid ground underneath or not. One misstep into a sinkhole …   
Hellcat yowled to get their attention. She was the lightest of them, and with her weight divided by four rather than two, she was able to stay atop   
the crust without breaking through. She was hunched low, acting for all the world as if she was trying to sniff something out but couldn't with her   
helm on. She settled for plunging her hand into the soil, rooting about, and coming up with an object that she dropped for them all to examine.   
It only took a few seconds for them to know what they were seeing. It was a scrap of germ-suit, still attached to a faceplate that had been   
cracked like an eggshell.   
"One of the first teams," Hunter said. "The ones that never came back."   
"They didn't get far," remarked Hyena.   
Hellcat burrowed deeper and retrieved a bone, a fragment of jaw with several teeth. Two of them had fillings.   
Hyena took it and ran her fingers along the mandible's curve. "Down to bare bone. Bet you he was eaten."   
"I'll not take that bet," Hippolyta said.   
"But where is the robot?" Hunter asked. "If it came through here, it should be nearby." She turned in a slow circle with her tracking device, then   
pointed. "This says it's coming from well over there."   
"Let's go, get it, and get out," Hyena said. "This place is uglier than Armpit, Nevada."   
"Shh," Hippolyta said. "They're still out there. Watching us."   
"Watching is fine," Hunter said. "It's when they try t' kill us that I get unhappy."   
Hyena laughed. "Let 'em try." Since she couldn't use her own internal weaponry, she'd decided on a mini-cannon that mounted on a body-harness,   
and now stroked it like a female endeavoring to please her lover.   
Hippolyta wasn't sure whether to be amused or appalled, especially given some of the lewd things Hyena had said over the past few weeks. She   
decided to follow Hunter's example and ignored her, keeping her attention on their surroundings.   
It seemed that each feature of the terrain hid a threat, and she could feel the hostile gazes upon them as they proceeded cautiously in the direction   
the tracker had indicated.   
They were not attacked. Perhaps the weapons that had slain two gave pause to the rest. Occasionally, shapes flitted across their vision, growing   
bolder but still mindful to take cover whenever one of them looked that way.   
"It's true," Hunter finally said. "They dinna look the same, not at all."   
"Mayhap they change, transform, as the humans did," Hippolyta ventured to suggest. "Mayhap they're were-beasts of some sort. Michelle Jessec   
told us that among Dr. Smythe's last words before he changed were 'not our moon.' As if it might be some other moon to direct the tides in their   
blood? A moon of this world? On a different cycle than our own, hence the nine-day interval?"   
"Hate to break it to you, hot stuff," Hyena said, "but look up. No moon. No stars. No satellites. Not even a sky-billboard advertising New Pepsi."   
Hellcat rose up on her hind legs, rear paws sinking into the crust, as she tapped Hyena on the shoulder. She extended her arm toward the horizon,   
where the frosty curve of a moon could just barely be seen.   
"Did anyone think t' ask," Hunter said, "when was the _last_ time the man in quarantine underwent the change?"   
"That would have been a wise and prudent question." Hippolyta's inner craving for adventure had never been at such a low ebb as this, when she   
was literal worlds away from home and ringed with unknown and unknowable creatures. The initial flash of excitement she'd felt upon realizing she   
was the first of her kind to stand upon the surface of this alien place had dimmed almost at once.   
As they reached the top and took in the view before them, all fell silent.   
The remains of a civilization were strewn across a rolling valley with the casual destruction that might have been left by gluttonous ill-mannered   
brutes at the dinner table. A few recognizable buildings leaned drunkenly against each other, while heaps of rubble marked the positions of the others.   
A muddy river was spanned by a twisted snarl of cables and beams that might have once been a mighty bridge. Huge charred patches and fields of   
ash told a tale of doomsday.   
And everywhere, scuttling through the wreckage, were more of the gantrylike creatures. They moved with frantic but purposeful speed, making   
Hippolyta think of teeming ants.   
"According t' the tracker --"   
"Don't tell me … it's down there somewhere," Hyena said. "In what's left of their city."   
"Aye."   
"Shit."   
"Aye."   
"Got a plan, Commander?" she asked mockingly.   
"Not yet."   
The moon was rising rapidly, and as it cleared the uneven bumps of the horizon they could see that it was full, ripe, and round. Not a crisp white   
like the moon they knew, this one was an ivoried and misshapen orb blotched with brownish lines that branched like riverbeds.   
The light it shed was yellowish and unwholesome, casting a sickly pall over the landscape.   
"So much for yer theory," Hunter said after several tense moments during which the scuttling scavengers did not alter from their actions.   
As they neared the city, they were able to make out a rough camp at its edge. Shelters cobbled together from any available materials huddled in   
clumps around a central clearing. Creatures returned from the ruins with burdens and parcels, taking them to this clearing and depositing them in   
uneven lines.   
A soft whirr came from Hyena's head. "Telescoping in … whoa."   
"They're salvaging?" Hunter said.   
"Sort of. Those are bodies."   
"Bodies?" Hippolyta echoed.   
"And body parts. They're dragging the dead out of the wreckage and dumping them in the field. Whatever flattened their city couldn't have   
happened too long ago, because most of those stiffs still have meat on their bones."   
"D'ye see the Remy?"   
"Keep your shirt on, I'm looking." With a rapid series of clicks – tic-tic-tic-tic – she turned her head in a sweep. "Got it. Oh, great. This is   
gonna suck."   
"What is it?" Hippolyta asked.   
"They've got him. Looks like he's the guest of honor, all set up pretty on a pedestal with offerings around him. Including what looks like a   
collection of human skulls. Figures. Strange new world, gross-looking aliens, worshipping their new god, and we have to go in there and bust it   
up. Wasn't this on _Star Trek_ last night?"   
"Except in _Star Trek_," said Hunter, "the aliens all look human but for their funny heads, and speak English."   
"So we write a nasty letter to Paramount telling 'em to get it straight." Hyena blinked a few times, bringing her artificial pupil back to normal   
size. "In the meantime, how are we going to get Remy out of there?"   
"I'll glide down and snatch it out," Hippolyta offered, flexing her wings experimentally.   
"Too heavy," Hunter said. "And unless I miss my guess, don't ye need air currents t' glide? There dinna seem t' be any strong enough in this   
atmosphere."   
Hippolyta looked at the way the curls of fog rose undisturbed from the crevices and snarled softly. "You speak true. I cannot feel the movements   
of the air, encased as I am in this garment."   
"So we've got a couple of other choices," Hyena said. "If they worship machines, we see what they think of me, and maybe I get a primo spot   
right next to Remy."   
"Aye, or they add yer skull t' the pile."   
"Yeah. So we just say screw it and go through them like cheese through a goose."   
"They've numbers on us," Hunter pointed out. "Substantial numbers."   
"But they are unarmed," Hippolyta said. "And unarmored."   
"We'd mow them down." Hyena patted her cannon again.   
"Dinna forget what they did t' the last ones who came here."   
Hippolyta said, "Mere operatives, perhaps ill-armed themselves, and not expecting a battle. They would have thought their only danger came   
from the air, hence their germ-suits would protect them. They never imagined that there would be living things over here."   
"So we wipe them out? What gives us the right --"   
"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Hyena rolled her eyes. "Haven't we already established that this isn't frigging _Star Trek_?"   
Hunter considered that, and began to nod. "When ye put it that way …" She unhooked an explosive flare pistol from her belt. "Ready?"   
Hellcat uttered a catamount screech that seemed to say it was about damn time, and led the way.   
Despite Hunter's earlier gunshots in the crater, the creatures in the camp had no idea they were beset until it was too late. The explosive flare   
smashed into the biggest shelter and it went up in a ball of brilliant magenta-orange fire, and then they were upon their prey.   
Hippolyta missed having the use of her wing-talons for holding spare arrows, but made do as best she could. Her arm moved in a blur of draw-   
nock-pull-release, and all of the old pride and glory she took in her skill came roaring back.   
This was what she was meant to do, be a warrior! And it wasn't as if she was killing gargoyles, or even humans … these were alien in every   
sense of the word. That made it all right in her mind. She was first to the crude altar where the remote 'bot waited while her cohorts were still fighting   
their way through.   
She sprang to the top and stood over Remy-6, disturbing the skulls and eliciting chittering squeals of outrage from the aliens. Those that had been   
on the verge of fleeing the battle now turned and rushed at her, to prevent her despoiling their treasure. She shot her quiver empty, felling a foe with   
each arrow.   
Hyena's cannon was a thunderous booming to underscore the sharp crack of Hunter's rifle. Hellcat was a blur through the crowd, her powerful   
legs nearly snapping the gantry-thin bodies with her kicks. Even without the use of her claws and flame, she was next to reach the altar and leapt up   
beside Hippolyta, landing deftly on all fours.   
And still they came … surging forth from the ruined city as if in answer to some silent call. Hippolyta thought again of ants, of bees, and reasoned   
that they might well be doing just that. From the shadows, from the rubble, they swarmed toward the altar.   
Hunter and Hyena joined them, holding back the aliens with a steady outpouring of firepower. Hunter looked sickened, because this was truly   
more slaughter than war, but Hyena looked as viciously jubilant as Hippolyta felt.   
And _still_ they came, a throng of them pressing close. Hunter tossed Hippolyta a laser pistol and she went to work, though there was something   
markedly unsatisfying about squeezing a trigger and seeing a beam of energy shoot forth … there was no strength required, no rewarding thrum of   
vibration as she felt when she released her bowstring.   
Hellcat tried something new, and hefted the remote 'bot high overhead. Her stance said that she was ready to dash it to the ground. It was a bluff,   
for if Remy-6 was destroyed now they would lose their pathway home, but the aliens did not know that and were cowed. They fell back, the insectile   
clicks and clatters of their speech sounding like the rattle of dry bones in a tomb.   
"So far, so good," Hunter said. "But if we try t' take it out o' here, they'll be on us again before ye can say Sean Connery."   
"Hey!" Hyena said, annoyed. "What gives?"   
Some of the aliens had apparently lost interest and were turning away, looking up. It passed from one to the next like ripples in a pond, all of them   
gradually turning to look up at the moon.   
"We're still right here, chumleys." Hyena made a come-along gesture. "What, playing hard to get?"   
Hunter took advantage of the momentary distraction to reload, but Hippolyta let her gaze follow that of the aliens to see what held them in such   
fascination. She saw nothing but the moon …   
But the moon was different now, wasn't it? This one was not tidally locked as was theirs at home, but rotated on its axis, and a new feature was   
coming into view. A curve of red, like the spot on vast Jupiter and yet not, like a crater and yet not …   
"Look," she said.   
"Great, first _Star Trek_ and now the Death Star."   
"No … it's na the Death Star," Hunter said slowly. "It's … an eye."   
Incredible that such simple words could strike such deep pervasive dread in Hippolyta's soul, yet they did.   
For it _was_ an eye, this strange moon. The brownish branchings that had seemed to be riverbeds now lent it a bloodshot appearance, and the   
giant maroon crater, remnant of an impact that must have nearly split the moon, was a glaring, baleful iris. It was a single disembodied eye staring   
down on them from the heavens, and the yellowed moonlight turned to murky red.   
The effect on the four of them was one of profound awe and unreasoning terror; that on the aliens was much more wracking. A general howling   
scream rose up, the dark texture of agony and horror and release all combined.   
They began to change.   
Grey-brown skin was bleached to white, torsos and limbs thickening, re-shaping. Most of all did their heads alter as eyes melted together into a   
scarlet bulging orb. The slits of their mouths widened and pushed out in a circular ring of teeth.   
They were not identical to Smythe, but that could likely be attributed to the differences in the underlying original form. When all else was said and   
done, though, it was plain that the humans had been affected by the same thing. Curse, spell, infection … it didn't much matter.   
As one, they charged. Not toward the small group of females at the altar; they ran in a slavering mob toward the rows of corpses. And now   
Hippolyta understood. It wasn't a mass grave but a mass feast for their unnatural hungers.   
The pale cyclops-beasts fell upon the stiff, mangled bodies of their former kind with wild abandon. The casualties of war were devoured in fast   
scooping bites, the flesh minced with each working of the oversized jaws, the resultant paste gulped eagerly down.   
"Now would be a good time to make like a shepherd and get the flock out of here," Hyena said.   
They needed no further convincing. 

** 

Remy-6's treads were caked with crusted salt, rendering the 'bot unable to move. Further, it had a large dent in one side, which was possibly   
the result of being dropped by overzealous aliens in their haste to return it to camp.   
It was not cumbersomely heavy but bulky, awkward, hard to grasp. Hippolyta and Hellcat ended up manhandling it together, managing a quick   
trot rather than the outright sprint both of them might have preferred. Hunter led the way, swinging her rifle hither and yon, while Hyena brought up   
the rear just looking like she would love for the necrivores to leave off their gruesome meal and start something with her.   
Over and over as they hastened past the carnage, Hippolyta had cause to be grateful that the germ-suits prevented her from being able to smell   
her surroundings. The scene was revolting merely to look upon. She did not even care to imagine what noisome stenches were being released as the   
transformed cannibals tore into the rancid guts of the desiccated cadavers.   
As they started up the hill, Hellcat's hands slipped. They juggled Remy-6 between them, the issue very much in doubt. Then Hellcat extended   
her claws, piercing through her gloves, and found purchase.   
Hunter had nearly reached the top when a necrivore lunged out of the fog and seized her. She fired reflexively, etching a trench in the crust. Her   
cry of alarm rang deafeningly over their communicators.   
Hyena raced up, but then two white hands shot up from the ground and toppled her. She plowed a trench of her own as she fell on her face. A   
second necrivore burst from its clever concealment, shaking salt and soil as it loomed.   
Hippolyta reacted on impulse, thrusting the entire weight of Remy-6 at Hellcat. Her hand slapped only air at the top of her quiver, so she swung   
the bow itself like a weapon and hit the first necrivore in the mouth just as it was about to clamp onto Hunter's neck.   
A shower of curved teeth and dark alien blood spattered out. Hunter rolled, bringing her rifle up as she went and blasting a hole in the necrivore's   
abdomen. Only barely slowed by the terrible wound, it raked the weapon from her grasp and swatted her hard in the head. Hunter went down, a   
crack scrawled across her faceplate.   
"Rragh!" Hippolyta jumped on the necrivore's back.   
She looped her bowstring over its head and twisted the bow, causing the string to cinch tight as a garrote. She could feel the grotesque workings   
of its muscles beneath her knees as it bucked and tried to throw her loose.   
Grimly, fangs grinding in anger, she held on and kept twisting. The cord was slicing into its neck, cutting through the flesh like a taut wire drawn   
through butter. A vessel on the front of its throat gouted a geyser of dark, silty fluid.   
In a death-throe frenzy now, the necrivore plunged and heaved so violently that Hippolyta was thrown clear, losing her grip on her bow. She spread   
her wings, but there was no breeze to catch her, and landed jarringly with her head half over one of the crevices from which the fog issued.   
Staring down into the depths, she saw more of the red eye-shaped lights whirling toward her. She yanked her head back fast and scrambled away   
from the crevice.   
Hunter had regained her footing and was a walking armory, having come up with a second laser pistol to replace the rifle and the one Hippolyta   
only now realized she'd lost. A dot of red appeared fleetingly on the necrivore's face, just between the bulging eye and the jagged gap of the mouth.   
Then the dot, and indeed most of the creature's head, vanished in a flare of energy.   
The smoking, cloven-skulled remains thudded to rest on Hippolyta's tail, driving it deep into the gritty ground. She yanked it from under the pinning   
weight but heard a rip and felt a scrape, as a six-inch rent was torn in her germ-suit.   
At once, she could hear her air hissing out through the hole. She grabbed her tail and clamped the edges together with one hand while pulling and   
tearing a strip of sealer-tape to close it.   
But had she been fast enough? Or was it too late? Was she infected even now? Was the alien plague or curse already working its way into her?   
She threw a quick look up at the red-eyed moon, but the sight of it affected her no differently than before. But it was probably too soon … the   
contagion might need time to settle in …   
"Are ye all right?" Hunter was by her side, taking in the patched place on the tail of her suit with a worried frown.   
"I hope that I am." She looked for the others.   
The second necrivore was mostly in pieces, scythed to bits by Hellcat's long razor-sharp claws. One of its legs had been blown to gristle and   
tendons thanks to a close-range blast from Hyena's pulse cannon.   
"Hellcat … her suit!" Hippolyta said. She still had the roll of sealer-tape in hand, and ran for Hellcat as the fiery mutate braced her forelegs atop   
her kill and announced her victory with a roar.   
"The 'bot!" Hunter ran past them to Remy-6, which was lying on its side where Hellcat had let it fall.   
Hippolyta struggled to get Hellcat to retract her claws and taped up the shredded ends of her gloves into clumsy mittenlike wads. It would have   
to do …   
"Want the good news or the bad news?" Hyena said.   
"I dinna feel in the mood for jokes!" Hunter righted Remy-6 and shuddered with relief when the blinking lights were shown to be still blinking and   
all the pieces seemed intact.   
"Well, the good news is we're almost there." Hyena pointed down into the crater, at the thick curtain of fog that marked the spot where they'd   
entered this hellish place. "The bad news is, _they're_ almost _here_."   
The rest of the necrivores had finished their meal, leaving little more than a scatter of bones where once there had been a mound of bodies. They   
were fanning out, coming up the hill, as the scarlet eye of the moon watched with a god's smug satisfaction.   
"Go!" Hunter tried to pick up the 'bot and staggered under its weight.   
Rather than move to help her, Hyena picked now as a good time to begin following orders, and broke into a run toward the floor of the crater.   
Hellcat snarled at the approaching army, then loped after Hyena.   
Hippolyta only debated it for a moment before running back to Hunter. She grappled the cumbersome 'bot into her own arms.   
"I have it!" she cried. "You go on!"   
Hunter's answer was to open up on the necrivores. Hop-trotting backward as Hippolyta trudged on with arms that felt ready to snap, Hunter   
laid down a covering fire until they were close to their point of entry. Then her laser pistol emitted a single weak splash of light and went dead.   
The necrivores recognized their chance and came at them in a shrieking white wave. Of their two companions, there was no sign but for the   
churned and disturbed tracks, so Hippolyta could only hope they'd gone through. There was no time to check.   
"You must go first!" she yelled at Hunter.   
"What?" Even with their earpieces and microphones, over the din of the onrushing hoard, they could barely hear each other.   
Hippolyta settled the matter with her tail, snaking it around Hunter's waist and swinging her entire body in a whipcrack motion to propel the   
woman into the fog. Arms pinwheeling, Hunter vanished. But Hippolyta, outdone by her own maneuver and the weight of the 'bot, overbalanced   
and was engulfed by the fog. Lightning stabbed at her like a thousand needles. She screamed, but her scream went unheard in the crackling tumult.   
She was picked up and thrown by the force of an explosion, head over tail, and then crashing down on a hard solid floor, landing squarely on her   
back. Sick pain spun out from her bruised wingjoints. Her head connected with something metallic and the gong of it seemed to reverberate through   
her entire body.   
She coughed, which hurt her wingjoints even more, and looked around.   
Four sore and unhappy females, one smoldering wreck of a remote 'bot, a conical portal sizzling with sparks and belching smoke, and a lab.   
"We did it," she said.   
"I want a new job," Hyena groaned from somewhere in the vicinity, and Hippolyta understood that the metallic thing with which she'd connected   
so concussively was in fact part of Hyena.   
The airlock door opened to admit a host of germ-suited operatives, prepared to hustle them off to quarantine. Where they'd learn soon enough   
if they had escaped infection.   
Soon enough? The next nine and a half days hung over Hippolyta like the blade of an axe. 

**   
**   
**_Continued in Chapter Three -- Betrayal_**   



	3. Betrayal

Bad Girls   
by Christine Morgan 

christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org 

Chapter Three -- Betrayal **__**

**_November, 2003_**

"Free again at last!" breathed Hippolyta, and quickened her pace when she heard sounds coming from the rooms up ahead.   
Hellcat had already vanished off to whichever haunts she had missed, but even more than freedom, Hippolyta was more starved for   
company.   
She had done her best to keep up on her exercises while contained, but she itched for motion, exertion! Her three-room suite seemed   
spacious by comparison to the tiny, stark, and antiseptic quarantine chamber, let alone the generous freedom of having access to the gym   
again, the target range.   
Being confined for six weeks had nearly driven her out of her head with boredom, nearly pitched her back into the despairing state she'd   
been in during her first enforced isolation.   
At least she hadn't been _completely_ cut off during that time. She'd been able to converse with her teammates every now and then via   
videophone, and Diamond had paid frequent visits. She'd had access to broadcasts, music, and movies. It had helped the nights to pass at   
slightly less than a snail's pace, prevented her from losing her mind out of sheer loneliness.   
Hellcat, the only other one of them careless enough to have breached the integrity of her germ-suit, had been in the quarantine room next   
door. Not that she was the best of company. Hippolyta had tried several times to communicate with her, but while the mutate often gave the   
impression of listening, she never significantly responded.   
Except for once, if one could call it a response … late one night, talking more for the company of her own voice than in expectation of a   
reply, Hippolyta had started telling Hellcat about her clan. But doing so only made her realize how much she missed them, how much she   
missed soaring the open air with her brothers and sisters. So, to change the subject, she'd asked Hellcat if she had a family.   
Oh, and what a look of deep and stricken pain had come into the mutate's lava-hued eyes! Her chin had trembled, her hands had curled   
in a silent, eloquent expression of longing. She'd wrapped empty arms around herself as if yearning for a mate's embrace, or the sweet hug   
of a child.   
But then a flaming rage overtook her, and she blasted the crysteel window between their rooms with such volcanic, searing heat that it   
triggered alarms and sprinklers on both sides. The crysteel held, but had gone milky at the center.   
After that, Hippolyta was careful to stay away from the topic of family. By then, as well, her mind was on other matters. Such as the reason   
she'd been put into quarantine in the first place, as the ninth night arrived.   
It had passed without incident for either of them. As had the eighteenth. And the twenty-seventh.   
Elsewhere, the infected human continued to transform, but Hippolyta and Hellcat remained unaffected. Whether it was luck, or whether the   
ailment only claimed human victims, the doctors never could determine, but they all agreed that both females were infection-free.   
At long last, Diamond had obtained clearance for them to be released and sent back by van. Now she was finally returned, refreshed, and   
ready to join her companions and see what new adventures might be awaiting them.   
She entered the series of rooms that they all used as a common lounging area. Here in the kitchen she found Hunter, putting the finishing   
touches on a hearty meal of baked chicken and potatoes.   
"Well met!" Hippolyta said cheerily.   
"Look who's home," Hunter replied. "Good t' see ye back."   
"Better to _be_ so." She swung a leg over one of the stools that ringed a high butcher block, and helped herself to an apple from the bowl in   
the center. Her fangs weren't well-suited to fruit, so she carved it into sections with her claws and crunched up a crisp slice.   
How good it felt to be home again, among her clan!   
From another room, she could hear the cheering and colliding mayhem of some televised sport, interrupted by a commercial for the armed   
forces. Hyena ambled in, fanning herself with a magazine.   
"I'm gonna need a cold shower after this!"   
Hunter averted her eyes, thinned her lips. "Ye do know that it's na normal."   
"Hey, lots of women get turned on watching sports," Hyena protested, digging in the refrigerator for a bottle of beer. She popped the cap off   
with her sharp thumbnail and drank deeply. "Two athletes in peak condition, performing to the best of their abilities … a contest of wit and strength   
and skill … oiled skin shining … the slamming and flexing and knocking the shit out of each other … what's not to get hot over?"   
"What are you watching?" Hippolyta asked, brow ridge raised. She saw Hunter frantically motioning negation, but pressed on. "Football?   
Boxing? Wrestling, mayhap?"   
"_Battlebots_."   
Her chin dropped slightly, pulling her mouth open and letting a chunk of apple fall into her lap. "_Battlebots_?"   
"You got a problem with that?"   
"Aye, it's deranged," Hunter said. "Preferring machines t' men."   
"Maybe you see it that way, but think about this – I preferred machines to men back when I was pre-upgrade."   
"I'd sooner _not_ think about it, if it's all the same to you," Hippolyta said, blinking.   
"Oh, right … you gargoyles are all prudes anyway."   
"Hardly!"   
"Pure vanilla. Those tails are probably just for show."   
"Oh, now, that is untrue!"   
"Yeah? Do tell!"   
"Well," she hedged, "there's said to be a maneuver that brings untold pleasure, but I've never figured it out, and did not have the chance   
to ask Corwin for more detail."   
"De_tail_," snorted Hyena. "Har har."   
"Up next!" announced a male voice from the television. "The super-heavyweight round … in the red corner, he's big, he's bad, give it up   
for MegaThrust!"   
"Ooh!" squealed Hyena, and dashed out of the kitchen.   
Hunter groaned lightly, shook her head in a short, sharp gesture, and sighed.   
"Strange tastes," was all Hippolyta dared say.   
"Och, aye." Hunter sprinkled a mix of Parmesan and cheddar onto a tray of seasoned potato slices and slid it into the oven. "So who's   
Corwin, then? Yer mate?"   
Hippolyta smiled, not without a touch of wistfulness. "No … he has no mate, though not for lack of trying on the parts of several of our   
sisters. I might not have even minded him for myself, but that his loins are unmoved by females. Not that he ever let that stand in the way of   
his good manners."   
"Good manners? Do I want t' know?"   
"He was always most obliging in other respects, which must have been how he stumbled across this trick of the tail," she said. "I wish I   
knew which of my sisters he'd discovered it with … strange that the rest of us never heard about it!" A thought struck her and she laughed   
aloud. "Perchance quiet Thisbe … I can just imagine! Or demure Elektra, would _that_ have been an event!"   
"I see Hyena was wrong t' call yer kind prudish," said Hunter. "Did ye have a mate?"   
"Not I. I chose not to breed, being not ready for the woes of egg-bearing. But before the breeding season, we were all muchly zealous at   
loveplay. What of you? Had you a mate … or husband?"   
"No. We were always so busy trying t' find the Demon that there was never much time for meeting people. I was dating one man fairly   
steadily a few years ago, but our work kept getting in the way so it never got serious. An' then, o' course, I wound up here."   
"I think Hellcat must've had a family," Hippolyta said after a quick look around to see if the fiery mutate was nearby. "Do you suppose   
they know about her?"   
"If they did, they'd be none too happy t' welcome her home. Most people dinna take kindly t' anyone or anything they see as different.   
Would her parents or husband want her back? Would her children, if she had any?" Hunter somberly shook her head and pulled on a pair of   
kitchen mitts. "It's best na t' think o' such things. Those lives are all behind us now. This is all we have."   
"Forever?" said Hippolyta softly. "Is this what we'll do forever? Whatever Diamond bids us do?"   
"Aye, that's the fine print. Were ye having second thoughts all that time in quarantine?"   
"A bit, mayhap. Haven't you?"   
"While ye were cooling yer heels in the Tank, Hyena and I were doing all the work. We've been t' Costa Rica an' back, fighting mercenaries   
and retrieving stolen aircraft. We took out a terrorist team that meant t' unleash a killer virus. This is our _job_, Hippolyta. We work for the   
Coalition now, and they dinna care for second thoughts."   
Chastened, Hippolyta dipped her head in an acknowledging nod. Leaving Hunter to her cooking, she ventured into the other room and tried   
to involve herself in Hyena's program. She watched Bulldog square off against Wrecking Ball, but just before Alien Botopsy took on the Red   
Baron, she found she couldn't stomach any more of Hyena's lewd remarks. It wasn't that she was prudish, it was that Hunter was right … it   
was _so_ very disturbing!   
So it was that, after all of her eagerness to be rejoined with her teammates, her makeshift clan, she ended up in her own quarters for the rest   
of the night, alone and melancholy with missing her rookery siblings. 

** 

"I think we should get to take it easy this time and those two should do all the work," Hyena said, elbowing Hunter. "They had that nice long   
rest in quarantine, so they'd better start earning their keep."   
"You need not tell me," Hippolyta said. "I am more than eager to be doing something instead of sitting about!"   
It was two weeks after her release, two weeks spent in training, getting back in condition after such idleness. Despite still nurturing some slight   
misgivings, Hippolyta found herself looking forward to whatever mission Diamond might have for them.   
"Yeah, bring it on, baby," Hyena said. "I'm sick of busywork, ready for some fun! Some real action, as my old buddy Wolf would have said,   
if he hadn't gone and gotten himself a one-way ticket to the big kennel in the sky."   
Diamond came in, chuckling at their enthusiasm. She had a bundle of file folders and videocassettes in her arms, and deposited them at the   
head of the table.   
"The time has come for you to undertake one of the most vital missions of your careers," she said. "The fate of the world could depend on   
your actions."   
Hunter raised an eyebrow. "Saving the planet from alien ghouls wasna important enough for ye? Or getting back that Japanese plane?"   
"Or taking out those terrorists? Damn, you're a demanding boss," Hyena said.   
"Well, when you put it that way …" Diamond laughed. "How about a shot at saving society, then? Do any of you know about the Illuminati?"   
"Aye, a secret cabal said t' control governments." Hunter looked significantly at the tapestry that hung on the wall of the conference room –   
sickle-wielding man atop a broken pyramid – as if making some connection that eluded Hippolyta.   
"Would it surprise you to learn that they're real?"   
"Nah," Hyena said. "Nothing surprises me anymore."   
"Rest assured, they are," Diamond said. "For centuries, they've been determining the direction the civilized world takes."   
"Pardon me if it doesna seem they're doing a bang-up job," Hunter said. "Poverty, crime, starvation …"   
"Exactly." Diamond folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. "They're only out for themselves, their own best interests. They   
decide who has power and who doesn't, and they make sure it's always in their hands. Crime rates are skyrocketing, disease is rampant,   
every week it seems like there's a new drug on the streets, corruption is everywhere, people are suffering … but as long as none of it touches   
the Illuminati themselves, as long as they keep their power, they don't care."   
"What has this to do with us?" asked Hippolyta.   
"Most people don't even believe in the Illuminati. They think secret societies are the stuff of supermarket tabloids. So, even when presented   
with proof positive, they're unable to accept it. But some other groups do know the truth, and are out to put an end to the Illuminati's reign of   
domination."   
"Ye mean like the Coalition?" Hunter had an odd tuck to her mouth that made Hippolyta think she wasn't all that impressed with Diamond's   
speech.   
"Like the Coalition," Diamond confirmed. "We've been struggling for decades to build up enough strength to challenge them on their own   
turf, expose them, bring them down."   
"It sounds to me as though much of what you do is the same that they do," Hippolyta observed. "Or so it seemed during the incident with   
Dr. Jessec."   
Diamond flashed her a glance of both irritation and pity. "Hippolyta, I don't expect you to understand all of the workings of our world yet,   
but you must realize that sometimes we have to stoop to our enemies' level, even become that which we despise, in order to get the job done.   
Some of our methods may have a bit in common with theirs, but our intentions are altogether different."   
"So what do you want from us?" Hyena said. "I mean, I knew they existed, but I just thought they were a bunch of harmless old farts making   
themselves feel important with their secret handshakes and no-girls-allowed meetings."   
"You're thinking of the Freemasons," Diamond said wryly. "Though there may be some crossover, of course. At any rate, the Illuminati are   
strong, and dangerous. They have to be stopped before they bring this country to its knees. Here we are in one of the richest, most prosperous,   
most advanced nations on the planet, but the average person is ignorant, uneducated, and scraping to make ends meet. Does that sound like a   
good master plan to you?"   
"Ye haven't answered Hyena's question – what does this have t' do with us?"   
"It's finally time," Diamond said, "for us to start taking direct action against their plots. To undermine them, to make them lose their strangle-   
hold. Something they've had in the works for years now is about to come to a head, and we mean to put a stop to them."   
The tapestry rolled up, exposing the screen behind it. A photo of a mid-thirtyish human male appeared. He was glancing back over his   
shoulder with a surprised, pleased smile, as if hailed unexpectedly by a friend not seen in long years. His hair was dark silver-gilt blond, wavy,   
very full and thick. His eyes were grey-blue, his teeth white and even, his features not movie-star flawless but attractive and appealing and full   
of character.   
Hyena made a wolf-whistle.   
"That's the picture they used for the cover o' _People_, wasn't it?" asked Hunter. "When he was named sexiest man o' the millennium?"   
"Who is he?" Hippolyta asked, feeling a bit embarrassed for not knowing him when everyone else seemed to. She did recall seeing his   
image on the television, but mainly on the news shows, to which she paid little attention.   
"Daniel Harmond," Diamond said. "Handsome, single, a professed romantic who adores children and animals, a former professional baseball   
player, a race-car driver, a fighter-jet pilot. He's got impressive family connections. Nephew of famed senator William Harmond, son of war-   
hero Gregory Harmond and silver-screen goddess Cecily Tate … and to appeal to the younger crowd, his cousin was Julianna of the rock band   
Scarlet Angel. Daniel Harmond is the sweetheart of nearly every faction of the population. Which is exactly how the Illuminati want it."   
"Aye, they call him _America's Prince_," Hunter said. "But what do the Illuminati have t' do with all that?"   
"They'd been planning something like this for years, though Daniel Harmond wasn't their first choice. America is fascinated with royalty, you   
see. The Illuminati knew that when England's Prince William turned eighteen and started making the news, America would need a prince of her   
own to hold the public's interest. They'd originally intended for John Kennedy Jr. to fill that role, but that plan was spoiled. So they went to work   
on Harmond. They've molded and groomed his entire life to make him what they want, and now they intend to make him the next President of the   
United States."   
"Oh, hell, not another election!" Hyena made a face.   
"Yes, I'm sure most of us in the room well remember the 2000 Presidential debacle," Diamond said. "But I don't suppose it ever occurred to   
you that _that_ was orchestrated by the Illuminati too?"   
"What d'ye mean, that they _wanted_ it t' be nearly a tie and waste all that time an' money on court hearings, an' leave the poor son of a bitch   
with a tainted term o' office t' dog him the rest o' his days?" Hunter frowned.   
Hyena snorted. "Don't blame me; I wrote in the fat naked guy from _Survivor_."   
"_Ye're_ registered t' vote?"   
"Hey, just because I'm a cyborg and a convicted felon doesn't mean that I don't get an absentee ballot under a phony name."   
"Now there's democracy in action for ye."   
"Girls, please. If I may continue … the 2004 election is going to be nothing like that. It's going to be the most overwhelming landslide in the   
history of the U.S., and even though Daniel Harmond hasn't declared his candidacy yet, he's going to win. That, at least, is the Illuminati's plan."   
"How do you know so much of their plans and intents?" Hippolyta asked.   
"My father was one of them," Diamond said. "As a young man, he wanted to expose them. But with conspiracies like that, usually by the time   
you've gotten enough evidence, you've also gotten in too deep to extricate yourself. So he joined. At first, he tried to change them subtly from   
within. When that proved ineffective, he resorted to more direct measures, but they found him out." Her expression suggested that it was best   
not even to ask what had become of him. "He told me their secret plans, and I resolved to put that information to good use. My then-husband   
and I formed the Coalition, and while we've done quite a bit of valid, legitimate work, our main purpose has always been to bring down the   
Illuminati."   
"So you want us to off Daniel Harmond." Hyena examined the long golden quills of her fingers speculatively.   
"You're getting ahead of me."   
Hippolyta half-rose from her seat. "Kill him? Assassinate him? But why? From what you say, he is popular and beloved, and might well make   
a good leader for this land of yours! Why end his life?"   
"Because his life is a lie, and all he'd be is a blatant Illuminati pawn. In the past, they've settled for nudging and influencing. They've managed   
to get everyone elected that they wanted to be elected, but most of the time the politicians involved had no idea and were hapless dupes. In   
Harmond's case, they would have complete, direct control over the President of one of the most powerful nations on the planet."   
"But to kill him!"   
"You've killed before."   
"Ain't it a slippery slope, though?" chuckled Hyena. "First you shoot a few rogue humans, but they attacked your clan first, so _that's_ all   
right. Then you go on a wholesale massacre, but they're ugly alien monsters so _that's_ all right. Trust me, hot stuff, you'll always find a way to   
rationalize it to yourself."   
"If you cannot see that there is no difference between a battle and an assassination …"   
"Of course there's a difference," Diamond said soothingly. "But sometimes it's also necessary to look at the larger scheme of things. The   
big picture. Without Harmond, the Illuminati's plan falls apart. Their eggs are all in one basket, so to speak."   
"What I want to know is how we're supposed to get close to him, if he's got all these people looking out for him," Hyena said. "Secret   
Service and all."   
"Ah, but they aren't," Diamond said. "Because no one knows about their plans for Harmond, not yet. It would look strange to have him   
surrounded by bodyguards. At most, there will only be one or two, and even they won't be expecting trouble. He's in no danger yet, because   
he hasn't shown any political aspirations. He's supposed to declare his candidacy on an apparent whim, a joke, but they'll laugh him all the   
way into the White House. Until then, though, he's not anyone's target because nobody is supposed to _know_."   
"How d'ye know they don't have a back-up plan in case anything happens t' him?" Hunter demanded. "Kennedy's death was an accident,   
so they have t' be prepared for the possibility o' something going wrong wi' this one too."   
"There's no one else they could have ready in time for the elections. No one else with such wide poplar appeal. It would force them to put   
their plans on hold until 2008, which would give us more time and weaken their position."   
"Kill an innocent man in cold blood?" Hippolyta said, shaking her head. "I do not know if I can do that. In fact, I'm sure I cannot."   
"Don't sweat it." Hyena made a gun of her thumb and forefinger, and blew across the pantomimed barrel. "I'll do that part. Though what a   
shame, what a waste, why couldn't we be going after some old ugly type?"   
"I trust your little crush won't hamper your mission?" Diamond asked with exaggerated sweetness.   
"He's only human. There's no one I wouldn't snuff if the price was right."   
"Good. But you, Hippolyta …" She took a slow breath and let it out in a reproving sigh. "You work for us now, or had you forgotten?"   
"No, but --"   
"You swore an oath and signed a contract, or had you forgotten?"   
"I hadn't --"   
"While your performance thus far has been exemplary, need I remind you that there are those in this organization who would just as soon see   
_you_ in the gunsights?"   
"No, Diamond."   
"Then what is the problem?"   
"I do not think it is right to kill this man when he's done nothing to deserve it."   
"I see," she said sympathetically, but with steel beneath. "Well, allow me to make a suggestion. Do as untold soldiers before you have done.   
Follow your orders and don't try to second-guess the right and wrong. Leave those thorny moral issues to your superior officer, who is paid to   
lose sleep over matters of right and wrong."   
Hippolyta bowed her head, contrite and not quite daring to remark that it certainly didn't _look_ as if Diamond lost much sleep over anything.   
She was aware of the eyes of her cohorts on her, probably wondering if she was going to press the issue and get herself a jolt of discipline from   
the band secured to her ankle.   
"Does anyone else have any concerns?" Diamond asked.   
Hellcat hadn't contributed anything to the conversation, only sitting alertly in her chair in a posture that could only be comfortable to someone   
with a cat's flexibility, but from which she could also probably flow like fast water if need be. She blinked her molten eyes at Diamond, her   
expression as fey and mysterious as that of any witch's familiar.   
"Nay," said Hunter, though she seemed pensive.   
"Nope." Hyena drew out the word and then popped her lips on the plosive at the end.   
"Good." She beamed at all of them, but beneath the maternal pride was something else, a smirk of possessiveness.   
The meeting went on, discussing the details of their impending mission. Hippolyta sat and listened, contributing nothing but lost in her own   
thoughts. She kept coming back to something the Magus had once said -- _there's no getting the better of a deal with the devil._   
And wasn't that what she'd done? Bought her life at the pain of her conscience, of her soul? She couldn't even tell herself with any real   
conviction anymore that she'd agreed to the Coalition's terms in order to protect other gargoyles.   
It had been a choice of simple selfishness. She would have done anything to save herself, anything and more to get herself out of solitary   
confinement.   
And just what would happen to all those other gargoyles if the truth came out? If the world learned what she was doing now? How much   
worse would it be for them if it became known that a gargoyle had been involved with the death of this much-loved Daniel Harmond?   
She was canny enough to know that name often mattered more than numbers to these humans. Hadn't she seen it even on their news shows?   
When an earthquake smashed a city and killed thousands of people in a remote corner of what they called the Third World, it got minor squibs   
on the news and in the papers. When an earthquake broke windows and hurt three people in Los Angeles, it was lead stories and special bulletins   
and up-to-the-minute updates even beyond the point when every last drop of interest had been wrung from the story.   
Hunter was looking sharply at her and Hippolyta feared that her thoughts were plain as writing on her face. The cold hard glint in Hunter's eyes   
said it all, so clearly that Hippolyta could nearly hear her voice.   
_Aye, it's wrong, but ye know as well as I do … what choice d' we have?_

** 

"Another compu-geek billionaire showing off," Hunter said sourly as they watched the string of limousines and high-end cars snaking up the   
sweeping curve of the driveway.   
It was first weekend of December, and the grand opening of the Experience Movies Project, a megalithic museum dedicated to the art,   
science, history, and technology of filmmaking. It included the world's third-largest sound stage, a gallery of sets from famous pictures, dozens of   
interactive exhibits, a theater capable of seating six hundred, and a separate IMAX theater. And one astronomical admission-price.   
The building itself was, to Hippolyta's eyes, a thing of uncommon ugliness. It resembled a partially-melted montage of other of the Emerald   
City's landmark buildings, as if someone had sculpted a candle of the Seattle skyline and left it too near an open flame. To make matters worse,   
the entire exterior was picked out in silver plate and gleaming sheets of jewel-tone metal.   
At the front, golden larger-than-life statues of film legends lined the drive. A red carpet of incredible plushness stretched between cordoned-off   
areas where throngs of reporters and onlookers jostled for position. Attendants in crisp white uniforms moved to greet each car, and flashbulbs   
dotted the night with white fire as the guests made their way toward the great silvery doors.   
The four of them were in the hover-jet, having staked out a spot on the roof of a neighboring building much earlier in the day, while Hippolyta   
was still asleep. She'd wakened to a cloudy winter night and a picture-postcard view.   
They were across from the sprawling Seattle Center, looking at the Space Needle, the graceful white arches of the Pacific Science Center, an   
amusement park, and the sinuous track of a monorail passing amid the attractions. The Space Needle had a Christmas tree shape of yellow lights   
on its crown, and a crane being used in the construction of a five-level parking garage was twinkling with multi-colored bulbs.   
"Look at all those rich snobs and movie stars," Hyena said. "It's a pity the things you see when you don't have a backpack nuke."   
"Shh." Hunter pressed her earpiece more firmly into her ear. "Op. 17 says that the car just left the hotel parking garage. One driver, two   
bodyguards, Harmond, an' his date."   
"Who's the shank of the day?" Hyena asked.   
"Courtney Jane Fischer, the television actress."   
"Please say we get to kill her too."   
Hunter shook her head. "Only Harmond, unless it's unavoidable. They're on their way. Ye all know what t' do."   
Hellcat growled assent, and Hippolyta nodded.   
"It'd be easier to just shoot him when he gets out of the car," Hyena complained.   
"Too chancy. We dinna want to make a mess o' this. We'll do it as planned."   
With that, she started up the hover-jet's quiet engines, and brought the exterior cameras online. A row of screens lit up with images from   
various vantage points, which changed as the jet rose straight up.   
It was a sleek, dark thing, invisible and silent against the background lights and noise of the city. The windshield was tinted a deep blue. The   
only identifying mark was a large gold emblem on the side, a sickle-edged crescent.   
When Hippolyta had asked why have such a mark at all, why give any hints, Diamond had merely smiled an enigmatic little smile and said   
that they _wanted_ the Illuminati to wonder who was behind this.   
She stayed in her seat, difficult though it was with adrenaline pumping wildly through her bloodstream. She still wasn't used to gliding on   
wings other than her own, would have preferred to be out in the open air. Her stirrings as she instinctively tried to correct for what she saw   
as errors in Hunter's piloting earned her a stern look.   
"Would ye sit still, ye back-seat flier?"   
The jet hung unnoticed high above the packed street, waiting like a predator ready to pounce. The line of cars moved painfully slow. One   
of the screens showed Harmond's among them, inching its way toward the spot where it could disgorge its illustrious passengers.   
"Now," Hunter said, more to herself than them. She hit the thrusters, and the jet dropped with a screaming roar.   
"Bombs away!" Hyena pressed a button.   
Rather than a true bomb, which would have left devastation for blocks in all directions, a magnetic clamp on a thick cable dropped from the   
bottom of the jet and plunked neatly onto the roof of Harmond's car.   
The jet surged upward, pulling the car with it. They could hear the crunch and screech of metal as it scraped along the vehicle in front, and   
then it was airborne, swinging in a circle at the end of the cable.   
A general outcry arose from the crowd. Flashbulbs popped like corn. A policeman on the scene fired at them, but the jet's armor plating   
deflected the bullets harmlessly.   
Hyena retracted the cable until the car was dangling just beneath their underside, and Hunter sped away, weaving a dizzying path amid the   
skyscrapers before seeking refuge in the dense cloud cover.   
"So far, so good," Hyena said. "We could just pitch 'em into Elliot Bay and be done with it."   
"Not sure enough. Ye heard Diamond."   
Certain she wasn't imagining the doubt in Hunter's voice, Hippolyta spoke up. "_Can_ we do this? In all honor and good faith, _can_ we?"   
"Now's na the time for this," Hunter said sharply.   
"Yeah, zip it. Who gives a tin shit about honor and good faith? We've got a _job_ to do, and we've gotta do it."   
"It seems so wrong --"   
"It probably is, but none o' us have a choice."   
Hippolyta said no more, but inside of her she seemed to hear a clanful of voices in protest.   
Moments later, they descended onto the roof of an unfinished building atop Capitol Hill. They had scouted it out the previous night, and   
knew it would eventually be a new hospital, but it was currently little more than a framework of girders and a shell of concrete.   
Without releasing the clamp, Hunter settled the jet a few yards from the car, the length of cable extending between them like an umbilicus.   
She opened the side hatch, and Hyena was first out.   
She extended her arm. A panel slid up and over, and a small grenade launcher rose from her forearm. "Come out and play!" she called to   
the car, and fired. A canister of gas plowed through the grill. The interior began to fill with smoke.   
The doors flew open and five humans spilled out, coughing and gasping, into the frigid December night.   
One of them, a young man in a dark suit, squinted through streaming eyes and tried to draw a bead on Hyena. Laughing, the maniacal   
cyborg shot a second gas grenade at him. It hit him just above the belt with a solid punching _thump_ and he was pitched backward, gun flying,   
head colliding with the side of the car. He slithered to a stop and did not move, immersed in a cloud.   
The second bodyguard rolled away from the crippled vehicle and got off a round of his own. It ricocheted off Hyena's hip with a metallic   
whine. Hellcat cleared the distance between the jet and the man with a single leap. She landed on his back, pinning him flat, and swatted the   
gun from his grasp with one swipe of her claws. This also tore most of the flesh from his hand, and his scream was high and shrill.   
Daniel Harmond himself, looking disheveled and alarmed but not afraid, was shielding the terrified, evening-gowned and mink-coated Miss   
Fischer with his own body.   
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What is this about?"   
The driver, a man of less sterling character, flung himself down with arms outstretched in supplication, and began to gibber.   
Hunter hopped lithely down from the jet. Her face was set in resolve – she clearly didn't like this, but she was just as clearly going through   
with it. "We've just come for ye, Mr. Harmond. Stand away from the lady unless ye want her t' be in the line o' fire."   
"Get away from me!" Courtney Jane Fischer cried, slapping at him with both hands. "It's you they're after, get away from me or they'll kill   
me too!"   
The words of the starlet so disgusted Hippolyta that she was on the move before she knew what she was doing.   
She seized Courtney's wrist. "You selfish creature! Here is a man who tried to _protect_ you, and you throw him to the wolves to save yourself?"   
The eyes of both humans widened as they saw her.   
"A gargoyle?" The way Harmond said it, with recognition and surprise and grave disappointment – a gargoyle, how could a _gargoyle_ be a   
part of this? – pierced Hippolyta to the core.   
"Stand back, Hippolyta," ordered Hunter. "Take her and get out o' the way."   
"Let go of me, you freak!"   
"We should just shoot her and shut her the hell up," Hyena said.   
Hippolyta ignored all of it, even the manicured nails scrabbling uselessly at her talons where they held fast to Courtney's wrist. Her gaze was   
locked with that of Harmond.   
"I'm sorry," she said in a low tone.   
"I don't understand. What do you have against me?"   
"It is not my doing."   
"I'll not tell ye again, Hippolyta … move!"   
Pulling Courtney, Hippolyta backed away from Harmond. As Hunter raised her rifle and Hyena pointed her laser finger like a gun, as Harmond   
stood confused but still showing no weakness, her heart broke beneath the heavy weight of emotions.   
She spun Courtney at her teammates. The sudden motion, the sudden scream, distracted them.   
Hippolyta leapt at Harmond. Her tackle took him around the waist and carried them off the edge of the roof.   
"No!" Hunter yelled.   
"I don't fucking believe it!" Hyena seconded.   
The cold wind blowing inland from the bay wrapped Hippolyta in a welcome silken garment of air. Gravity pulled hard, and her wings creaked   
with the unaccustomed burden of a human passenger. Harmond drew in a startled breath.   
"Do not fear," she said.   
A beam speared down, Hyena's laser, firing at them from the roof. Hippolyta turned on a wingtip and was confronted with the bare concrete   
side of the building. The places where windows would be were only holes covered with plastic, the glass not yet installed.   
She went straight at one, backwinging at the last second to rake it with her hind talons. It parted in long rents and she dove through, into a dark   
maze of half-finished walls, pipes, and ducts. Gliding in here was impossible. She touched down, releasing him.   
"I cannot leave you here. It's not safe, and they mean to kill you."   
"I noticed."   
"But nor can I carry you without air currents to lift us. So run, Mr. Harmond, for all you're worth. Come with me and run." She offered a hand.   
He looked at it for a moment, and she could see him weighing his doubts.   
"Please!"   
Harmond clasped it.   
She led as they ran, her eyes better suited than his to the lack of light. From behind her came the whine of small engines, as Hyena's jet-packs   
fired in short bursts to let her descend in pursuit.   
Hunter's voice was like that of an angry goddess in her earpiece. "What in the hell d'ye think ye're doing, Hippolyta? Ye canna _do_ this t' us!   
Ye're disobeying orders an' betraying yer team!" Those last three words stabbed like knives.   
Harmond, running at her side, could hear Hunter as well. "Why _are_ you doing this?" he panted. He was fit, but she was fitter and pushing their   
pace.   
"Not now! There … the window!"   
"You mean … jump?"   
"Yes." She stopped long enough to rip another gap in the plastic, then swept him into her arms the way she'd seen great Goliath carry his friend   
Elisa.   
"I've been skydiving dozens of times," Harmond said, peering apprehensively out, "but never without a parachute."   
Despite all her troubles, that brought a quirk of a smile to her lips. She plunged through the opening and down.   
Capitol Hill was a neighborhood consisting mostly of larger, older homes shaded by plentiful trees. Many of them had lost their leaves but   
more were evergreens, affording her some much-needed cover. She wove around trunks and chimneys, ever watchful over her shoulder for   
the hover jet, thankful that Hyena's jet-pack wasn't sufficient to keep up with a gargoyle.   
Harmond was also looking back. "I think you've lost them."   
She veered north, where Lake Union shimmered like a midnight sapphire, and then turned toward downtown by a circuitous route. "I must   
return you to your people, where you'll be safe."   
"You haven't answered my question."   
"I could not be a party to this assassination," she said. "What came before was self-defense, battle. This was neither."   
Though it was taking a big chance, she headed for his hotel. In planning the deed, they had considered making the attack there but dismissed   
it because he'd be too well-guarded. Hence the idea of abducting him car and all. But the preliminary research had left her familiar with the   
layout, and she had no trouble picking out the balcony of the suite that was his. Lights were on within but the curtains were drawn.   
She landed and set him down. "Be cautious," she said. "They'll still mean to finish the job. They know you'll be here. I suggest you find   
other accommodations."   
"Wait!" he said as she started to leave. "Why me? Why would anyone want to hurt me? What have I done?"   
The balcony door was thrown open. "Don't move!" yelled a male voice.   
Before she even _could_ move, a gun went off. Something slammed into her chest, driving her tail-first into the rail. Her breath exploded out   
in a grunt.   
"Dawes! Stop!" Harmond shouted.   
Wheezing, Hippolyta looked down at herself. Shot … it didn't hurt as badly as Corwin had described it … or maybe the shock came first   
and the pain would be next.   
Yet there was no blood, and an instant later she realized that against all odds, the gunman had actually hit her in the vest that covered so little   
of her torso. The ablative gel inside the garment had stopped the bullet, but the impact had been staggering enough.   
"Get down, Mr. Harmond! I --"   
"I said stop!"   
"She'll --"   
"If she wanted to kill me, believe me, Dawes, she had plenty of opportunities. She saved me."   
Hippolyta clung to the rail, taking one full breath after another and wincing with each one. She was dimly aware of Harmond and Dawes   
talking, more aware of the dull flush of pain now spreading outward from what was bound to be a truly stupendous bruise.   
More humans milled out while others were dispatched to look for the car, the bodyguards, Courtney. The curtain billowed back and forth in   
the wind, and their voices rolled like the surf. Somehow, they all wound up ushered back inside.   
"Hippolyta. Hippolyta, are you all right?"   
Harmond. How did he know her name … oh, yes, he'd heard Hunter.   
"Fine," she said. It was not wholly a lie; she was recovering. She looked around and saw that she was surrounded by armed humans, regarding   
her with well-earned suspicion. "I must go."   
"You've been shot. Let me get you a doctor."   
"I need no healer. Mr. Harmond, leave this place. They'll be coming for you."   
He nodded. "Then come with us. You turned against them, so now they'll be after you, too."   
"I cannot. They'll find me. Anywhere I go." She stretched out her leg to show him the anklet. "They use this as a tool of discipline, to shock us   
should we disobey. But there is more to it than that. They'll trace me with it, and so I must leave before they find us both."   
"We'll get that thing off of you --"   
"Take her with us? Mr. Harmond, are you crazy? She's one of them! One of the kidnappers!" Dawes glared at Hippolyta. "After what they tried?"   
"She turned against them," he repeated.   
"So that only proves she can't be trusted!"   
"What?" Harmond said, astounded.   
"If she'd betray one group, she'd betray another! You can't trust a traitor, even one that's helped you!"   
"That's the most absurd thing I have ever heard!"   
"No," Hippolyta said. "It is not absurd. I am an oathbreaker. No matter how under duress my oath had been taken, no matter how little choice I   
was given, I did swear that oath … and then I did break it."   
"I don't accept that," Harmond said. "You helped me, and now I'm going to return the favor."   
"No! Do you not see? My presence endangers you, will lead them right to you! They will not let you live to become President!"   
On the heels of a universal gasp, Dawes shoved his face close to hers. "How do you know about that? No one knows about that!"   
"President?" Harmond said, unfeignedly stunned.   
"They do!" Hippolyta focused on Dawes. "They know of your plans, and they mean to stop you. They mean to bring down the Illuminati, beginning   
with him."   
"The what?" Harmond looked at Dawes. "What is she --?"   
"There's no time for that now," he said hastily.   
"Agreed. Please, let me go and take yourselves to safety before they find you."   
"Not so fast, missy!" Dawes barked. "You're not going anywhere until you tell us everything!"   
"Hear me!" she roared, eyes burning red, and though she did not otherwise move, all the guns that had been lowering now centered on her again.   
"This is not just a shock-tool, this is a _tracking_ _device_! It can be found by the satellite anywhere I go! And --"   
Somehow, it had never occurred to her that if they could remotely _track_ her by satellite, they could _activate_ it that way as well.   
A white brilliance swallowed her as the numbing jolt galvanized her body. The room revolved rapidly around her before the floor smacked hard into   
her shoulders. Her limbs, uncontrolled, jerked and jittered. Her heel-spurs beat a wild tattoo, then one snagged in the carpet. She heard commotion,   
but it all seemed terribly far away.   
This made getting shot feel like a lovetap … the agony was electric and everywhere, each nerve shrieking. She longed for unconsciousness and was   
denied it, remaining vividly aware as the torture went on and on. 

** 

Her sense of time-passing had ceased to have meaning. It was forever, all time was now and now was forever, in the unendurable pain.   
And then it was over. Everything was quiet.   
Except for the pitiful cries of some animal.   
No … that was herself.   
Hippolyta locked her jaws and the sound went away, but the shame remained. That had been _her_, mewling like a hurt kitten, crying like   
an abandoned baby bird.   
She finally realized that she was someplace new, a warm and shadowed room lit by the low amber glow of a banked fire. A soft mattress   
was beneath her, and the pleasant scents of smoke, cedarwood, and spice hung in the air.   
Her body felt wrung out and trembly, hatchling-weak. A spot on her chest throbbed with each beat of her heart, and her leg was abominably   
sore.   
She slowly sat up, a light blanket that had been draped over her falling away. This was a bedroom, with fine wood furniture and a cedar   
chest at the foot of the bed. The window was shuttered, but through the slats she could see the sparkle of multi-hued lights … human holiday   
decorations.   
Her leg was wrapped in bandages. Peeling them away, gritting her teeth as she did so, Hippolyta uncovered her ankle and blinked in surprise.   
The device was gone. Where it had been, her skin was a mess of raw abrasions, blisters, and scorch marks. They had been treated with   
salve.   
While she still had her clothing, her weapons and belt were gone. This didn't particularly surprise her, but it was dismaying to know that here   
she was, captured by humans _again_.   
She got up, limping on her miserable ankle, and tried the door.   
It opened.   
She almost fell over backward, what from expecting locked resistance and finding none. But she regained her balance and looked out onto   
a hall papered in light blue with a pattern of gold fleur-de-lis.   
Other doors along it were closed, but for one standing ajar that gave onto a bathroom, and one at the end of the hall that stood open. From   
beyond that one, she heard the rustle of newspaper, the shuffle of playing cards, and the low murmur of voices.   
She made for that rectangle of mellow golden light. When she reached it, the noises ceased and she found herself the object of the attention   
of four men and a woman.   
Two of them were familiar – Daniel Harmond and the one called Dawes. One of the other men was older and distinguished, setting down his   
paper to study her with considerable interest. The last man was on second look little more than a boy, a youth whose eyes devoured her greedily.   
The woman was snowy-haired and utterly beautiful.   
"Hippolyta!" Daniel Harmond set down a fan of cards and stood. "We didn't know when you'd awaken. How are you feeling?"   
"I am well," she said carefully. "The device? What happened? How am I come here?"   
"You don't remember?"   
"Only the pain."   
"You had a seizure, but I was able to tend you," the youth said, and everything in his tone belied his apparent age. He sounded much older,   
supremely overconfident, very full of himself.   
"We had to restrain you," Harmond explained. "And remove the tracking device by force. I'm afraid in the process, we hurt you."   
"I will mend. But why?"   
"Because you helped my son," the woman said. She was the very epitome of graciousness. "We could not leave you to suffer that fate. The   
ones in control of it apparently meant to kill you with it."   
"It would have been fatal to a human," the older man said.   
"And we had to find out what you knew," Dawes finished.   
"Besides," said the youth, "we weren't _about_ to let a new gargoyle slip through our fingers."   
Chilled by the avarice in his voice, the way he savored every word, Hippolyta studied him more closely. He looked so unassuming, not even   
to his full height, with brown hair and a petulant sneer to his lips.   
"Forgive all my questions, but who are you and where am I?" she asked.   
"Manners, Daniel dear." The woman laughed throatily. "Introduce us to your friend."   
The term made Dawes scowl.   
"Of course," Harmond said. "Hippolyta, may I present my parents, Gregory and Cecily Harmond? And Dr. Anton Sevarius, a friend of the   
family. You already met Mr. Dawes."   
"Sevarius?" she echoed, drawing back. "_The_ Anton Sevarius? I had thought …"   
"Hmm," chuckled the boy. "My reputation precedes me, and unflatteringly, as usual."   
"It's too complicated to go into all of that now," Gregory Harmond said. "Just take our word for it … this _is_ Dr. Sevarius, but as far as most   
of the world is concerned, he's a brilliant young student we took in as a foster-child several years ago."   
"_Everything's_ turned out to be more complicated than it seems," his son retorted. "It's not every day you find out that your entire life is being   
run for you according to someone else's plans."   
"Oh, for heaven's sake, Daniel!" chided his mother. "All children go through that. Yours merely turned out to be a slightly more severe case."   
He gave her a frown that said the matter was by no means settled, and turned back to Hippolyta. "As for where you are, you're in my family's   
vacation home at Lake Chelan, near Leavenworth. We brought you here in my private plane."   
Dawes shifted in his chair and grumbled.   
Noting that, Daniel grinned halfheartedly. "Over some objections, that is."   
"Am I your prisoner?"   
"Prisoner!" Cecily Harmond rolled her eyes extravagantly. "What ever gives you that idea? This is our _home_! One of them, at any rate. We'd   
hardly take a prisoner into our home. We only hope you'll repay our hospitality with a little information."   
"But there's time for that later," Daniel said firmly. "It'll be morning soon. Will you be comfortable in the guest room, or do you need to be   
outside?"   
"Anywhere is fine." She felt dazed by this conversation, by these strange turns of events.   
"If you feel like walking, I can show you around. And you must be hungry."   
"I am that," she admitted.   
"Shall I ring Mrs. Asherby?" Cecily inquired.   
"No, Mother … don't wake her. We can manage." Daniel motioned to the door, and an increasingly bemused Hippolyta allowed herself to be   
escorted through the house.   
"I am so at a loss," she said, as they reached a room dominated by a flagstone fireplace large enough to roast a whole boar. "If I am not your   
prisoner, what am I?"   
"In this house, you'll find, we don't contradict Mother. If guest she says, guest you are."   
She accepted that for the time being. "You didn't know, did you? About the Illuminati, the Presidency, or any of it?"   
"No. Tonight has been long, but very … ha, illuminating. I've had the whole thing from my parents. The Illuminati … I'd heard about them, but   
who believes that stuff? It's like saucer people --"   
"Or gargoyles?"   
He paused, and laughed. "Let me tell you a story. I roomed in college with a guy named Nick. I was pre-law, he was pre-med. Very grounded,   
very concrete. Scientific answer for everything. He was Native American, but whenever anyone would ask him about his heritage, especially the   
mythology, he'd tense up and tell them off. A few years ago, I ran into him again at an ecology fundraiser. He'd changed his mind about all of that,   
and I asked him why. He told me that one night, a beautiful woman introduced him to gargoyles, and told him it was time to get some old beliefs.   
He finished out that night taking on a god in single combat, to win back the land for his people."   
"Raven!" Hippolyta said, delighted. "Yes, I know of this … Grandmother told it at the Gathering one night when I was acting as honor-guard! I   
know these gargoyles of which you speak, and the woman that was with them!"   
"This was about the same time that gargoyles were all over the news, and most people did think it was all urban legend. I was leaning that way   
myself, but Nick convinced me otherwise. If _he_ believed it, the most hard-headed logical man I knew, there had to be something to it. As it turned   
out, Nick was right. I've met gargoyles. I just never thought that one would save my life."   
"Yet I was one of those who tried to kill you."   
"That's Mr. Dawes' opinion." He scratched his chin, where dark gold stubble was beginning to shadow the line of his jaw. "It's all just a little   
hard to take in, all at once. My own parents, members of the Illuminati, plotting my future without saying a word to me. No, I take that back …   
last summer, my mother made some remark about how I should run for government. I laughed. Last time I did anything like that was in high school,   
and I lost. President of the United States, me? I'm not a senator, not a governor, never held an elected office."   
"And not only to learn that, but to find that you've enemies accordant with the status."   
"Right … this Coalition. That's what they want to know about, as much as you can tell them. But I don't know if we have the right to make those   
kind of demands. You've done enough."   
Hippolyta looked at the floor. "Indeed, I have done enough … enough to ensure that my life is forfeit. Right or wrong, I broke my vow to them.   
I betrayed them … my team, the closest I had to a clan. To say more against them would be adding to my crime, and if these Illuminati are in truth   
the corrupt evil powers that they fight against, I may be doing a greater wrong to hamper their purpose!"   
"My parents may keep secrets, but I can't believe they're evil."   
"I no longer know what to believe." The import of her situation loomed over her and then crashed down like a great dark wave. "You do not   
seem a bad man, and I can see no good in your death. But these are human matters, so how did I come to be caught up in them?"   
"That's what I was wondering. How did you? Everything I know about gargoyles tells me that you're defenders, not conspirators, not assassins.   
What clan are you from?"   
She sighed. "I was of Avalon, but left with some of my siblings after disputes. Then they were lost to me, or I was lost to them, for they thought   
me dead. And so I was left to try and see my teammates as a clan, but now I have turned against them. I am clanless."   
"Can't you go back?"   
"To Avalon? To Tourmaline's clan?" Hope swelled, then died. "No … how can I, now? Now that I've done all that I've done? They wouldn't   
take me back. They would shun me. I am already dead to them … it's better that way. I must go on my own, alone."   
"Where would you go? I can help you."   
"Why? I saved your life, you saved mine. You have no further obligation to me, and have troubles enough now without adding those of a gargoyle."   
"Gargoyles have done a lot for my family … have meant a lot to my family. I'd like to do my part in returning some of those favors. I'd like to be   
your friend, Hippolyta, and a friend is what I think you need now."   
He extended his hand, much as she'd done when requesting his trust.   
She hesitated, then placed her own in it. 

** 

The next few nights passed smoothly for Hippolyta. She found that the Harmonds held true to their statement that she was no prisoner, for   
she was not kept confined. Had she so desired, she could have easily left their home whenever she wished.   
She did not immediately choose to do so. Her every instinct told her that these people were not her enemies, despite Dawes' never-pleasant   
opinion of her and despite their status as members of the Illuminati.   
What difference did it make, really, to her? One group or another … these were all human politics. And after hearing more from Daniel about   
his previous meetings with gargoyles, she began to believe that if either group was more concerned with the welfare of her kind, it was the Illuminati.   
According to Daniel, the gargoyles were linked to that society through their benefactor, David Xanatos. Gregory Harmond's elder brother   
William, once a senator and still an active and respected man in the government, was a staunch gargoyle ally.   
From Toby Jessec, Hippolyta had heard a little about what was known of the gargoyles. From Daniel, she learned much more. He showed her   
articles and clippings, video tapes, photographs. Most striking among these was a tape of a rare appearance by great Goliath himself on a televised   
talk show.   
Ever stern and noble, he was unbothered by the occasional jeer from the audience as he explained to the hostess – one Elaine Kristen, a honey-   
haired woman with a dazzlingly white smile – the beliefs and intentions of his clan.   
"Gargoyles protect," he said in a voice that sent shivers down the spines of the listeners. "It is our nature, our purpose. While there have been   
instances to the contrary, branding us all monsters because of those instances is no different from judging all of _your_ kind by the actions of the   
criminally insane. To stop protecting is to go against the clan, to forget what it means to be a gargoyle."   
"That," Daniel said after showing it to her for the first time, "is why I knew I could trust you. I saw it in your eyes."   
He told her of a banquet and ball that he'd been to in his uncle's honor, an event attended by several members of Goliath's clan. He even brought   
out a photograph of himself that had been taken there, and to her astonishment, the female with whom he was dancing was her own sister, Elektra.   
"I can barely believe it!" she said, running her fingers lightly over the slick surface. "Elektra? Shy Elektra, who kept more to the Magus' tower   
than mix with the clan or with Oberon's folk? And look on her … she is beautiful!"   
In a satiny gown of light purple, with her hair bound by a fillet of gold, Elektra looked more than beautiful … her resemblance to Katherine had   
never been more plain. How had they not seen it before?   
"It makes perfect sense that they'd encourage her to be at these affairs," Daniel said. "Someone like Goliath is so imposing, intimidating, so   
obviously unlike us, that his appearance frightens people even though he doesn't mean to. But Elektra, why, she could almost pass for human. People   
see her and think _aha, well, they're not so different from us after all._"   
"More than you know," she murmured.   
"And then there's Broadway's show … he's so good-natured that it's almost impossible for anyone to dislike him."   
"His show?"   
"_Cooking Big_ … you've never seen it?" He took out the tape of Elaine Kristin's talk show and pushed another one into the machine. "It's on   
every Friday at midnight Eastern time."   
And sure enough, there he was … the same genial Broadway who had visited them on Avalon, his pale green-blue skin glossy with health and   
prosperity. He wore a tall, puffed white hat and a smock as he gourmandized his way through a meal preparation, chatting amiably with the camera   
and his guests as he did so.   
"How Miriam would love to see this!" Hippolyta exclaimed. "He seems to have done well for himself. I wonder, did he ever state his affection   
for Elektra? It was obvious to all on Avalon, all but Elektra, that is."   
"Well, they're mates, if that's what you mean. I understand they've got an egg in the rookery."   
"Oh," she said softly. "And thus are my unkind words proved as false as they were hurtful … sister, I am sorry. Like the rest of me, my mouth   
sometimes acts ahead of better sense."   
Daniel didn't ask, and observing her distress, artfully changed the subject. He told her what more he'd found out about the Illuminati, having   
pressed his parents for answers now that he knew they were pulling the strings of his life.   
Because he had told her so much, she consented to confess to them all that she knew about the Coalition. It troubled her greatly to do so, and   
felt like a continuance of her betrayal … first a defection, and now to tell all to the enemy … but she was coming to see just how Diamond had   
manipulated and misused her.   
"But what of the others?" she dared ask afterward, looking from Daniel to his parents, and from them to the obdurate Dawes. "Hunter, Hyena,   
Hellcat? They, like me, had no choice. We were all of us bound to Diamond's bidding --"   
"I don't know about this Hellcat person," Cecily Harmond replied archly, "but the other two have extensive criminal histories."   
"Don't you know what they nearly did to the Manhattan gargoyles?" put in Gregory Harmond. "Hunter – or Robyn Canmore – and her brothers   
blew up the police precinct that was their home. It's a miracle more people weren't hurt. You just cannot go around shooting off guided missiles in   
the middle of New York."   
"And Hyena, along with other members of the Pack," Cecily added, "is guilty of everything from burglary to murder. You are one lone gargoyle   
in over your head, but they certainly knew what they were getting into. I have no sympathy for them."   
"None," her husband said.   
"They were …" Hippolyta faltered, realizing that no words could honestly describe what they'd been to her.   
Teammates, yes. Friends? Almost … some of them … one of them … maybe. They had put up with each other, got along as well as could be   
expected under the circumstances, but she didn't think for a moment that any of them would have refrained from killing her if necessary to fulfill   
the mission.   
The attempt on Daniel's life had caused a sensation in the news. Plenty of reporters had captured the striking footage of the entire car being   
hauled off into the sky by the mysterious hover-jet.   
The bodyguards – one of whom was still hospitalized with a skull fracture and the other of whom was undergoing reconstructive surgery to   
repair the ghastly damage done his hand – had maintained their silence on the Harmonds' orders. The driver and Courtney Jane Fischer were under   
no such restrictions, however, and had gabbed the entire story to the hungry reporters.   
So it was that all the world knew that Daniel Harmond had been rescued by a mysterious turncoat gargoyle, and the rest of the assassins had made   
their getaway. Daniel himself had consented to a couple of brief appearances, to assure them that he was alive and well, and to apologize for being   
forced to miss the gala opening of the Experience Movies Project. 

**   
** 

**_Continued in Chapter Four -- Tangled Webs_**   



	4. Tangled Webs

Bad Girls   
by Christine Morgan 

christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org 

Chapter Four -- Tangled Webs 

**_December, 2003_**   


"How can you go out there?" Hippolyta asked upon waking one evening to learn of Daniel's trips across the mountains to Seattle.   
"They will still be searching for you, meaning to kill you!"   
"I know. But, damn it, Hippolyta, I can't spend the rest of my life in hiding."   
"What _do_ you mean to do?"   
"What?"   
"Now that you know all of it. Now that you know they plan for you to be President."   
He blew out a breath as he fixed himself a brandy. "Good question."   
"They cannot use you as an unknowing pawn any longer …"   
"But?"   
"But … well … it is not my place to say, and I know so little of this world … but it seems to me that you would make a fine leader."   
Daniel slumped into a chair and chuckled ruefully. "Friend of mine always said that anyone who wanted to be king shouldn't be   
allowed … so going by that, I'd be perfect for the job."   
In that moment, he reminded her poignantly of Corwin … so gifted with advantages yet not arrogant, not filled with a sense of his own   
importance.   
"What do you want of your life, then?"   
"Another good question. I'm thirty-five years old and haven't figured that out yet. I tried sports, I tried the military, I tried the theater,   
I tried business … and all of them were good for a while, but the excitement always wore off and I needed to go looking for the next new   
thing. Variety, new experiences, that's what I want."   
"Yes!" she said, sitting up straighter. "To never settle for only one thing but test yourself always with new challenges!"   
"We must be kindred spirits." He raised his glass in an amused toast.   
"Would ruling the country not give you that?"   
"It might, but at the expense of my freedom. An entourage of Secret Service, press secretaries, God knows who all, following me around.   
Unable to pick up and go away for the weekend, even for the afternoon, without making a huge production out of it. Tied down to so many   
duties and responsibilities, the nation and the world always watching my every move … I'd feel stifled."   
"Yes," she said again. "I know very much what you mean."   
"But it would only be for four years. Maybe the novelty wouldn't wear off right away." He tossed back the rest of his drink and   
purposefully stood.   
"Have you decided?"   
"I've decided that I don't want to stay in tonight and drink too much brandy and feel sorry for myself. Let's go out."   
"Out?"   
"Down into Leavenworth. You should see the town."   
"And should they see me?" She gestured at herself, partly fanning her wings for emphasis.   
"Chickening out on me?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye.   
It was, of course, just the right thing to say. And so it was that an hour later, Hippolyta found herself in the passenger seat of his car as   
they drove along a snow-lined road toward the colorful jewel box of lights ahead.   
She was uncomfortably warm in the heated vehicle, bundled as she was in a long woolen skirt, overlarge fleece-lined boots that hid the   
shape (if not the size) of her feet, gloves, and a fur-trimmed hooded shawl-cloak of a garment. With the hood pulled low over the spiky   
tiara of her brow ridge, and a scarf wrapped around her neck and chin, her disguise was complete enough to allow her to pass for a human.   
In very dim light and from a distance, at least.   
But she pushed her misgivings aside, thrilled at the prospect of an outing. She had seen very little of this land, all told, as most of her time   
had been spent belowground at the Coalition, in training. To be out among the humans, right there amid them in one of their towns, was   
curiously enticing.   
Leavenworth was nothing if not picturesque. Nestled in the foothills of the white-frosted Cascades, it was a village that seemed to exist   
solely for the purpose of having visitors come and enjoy its shops and scenery. The buildings all shared what Daniel said was a Bavarian   
design, with decorative woodwork and scalloped eaves.   
This deep into winter, the town was done up for the human holidays. Strings of lights outlined roofs, doors, and windows. Wreaths and   
swags of evergreen added rich color to the snow. Tall pines were covered in ornaments.   
It took her breath away, the dazzling wonder of this manmade magic. She emerged from Daniel's car like one in a dream, slowly turning   
about to take it all in.   
Although it was after dark, the streets were busy. Happy humans bustled about, their breath forming clouds around their heads. They   
were all as bundled up as she, if not moreso. They strolled briskly from shop to shop, arms filled with purchases and gaily-wrapped parcels.   
On a stage near the largest of the decorated trees, musicians and singers gathered and filled the night with wonderful music. Hippolyta   
stood like one entranced, too swept away by the beauty of their song to do anything more that wish that Deborah and Laertes, with their   
love of music, could hear this.   
She drew hardly any attention. Daniel was often and instantly recognized but largely left alone, out of some unspoken niceness of manners.   
Or perhaps it was that he was so well-known to the locals that they did not need to approach him, and so regarded with awe by the visitors   
that they dared not.   
"I love coming here at Christmas," he said. "Oktoberfest is more lively, but seeing it all lit up like this … it's magical. And what I really   
enjoy is bringing someone here for the first time, seeing it again through their eyes. It makes everything seem so new. Especially someone   
like you, Hippolyta. Almost everything in our world is new to you."   
He took her gloved hand in the bend of his elbow and they walked together through the lightly-falling snow. At first, she hung back when   
he tried to lead her into the shops, but he insisted and she gave in, and her senses were struck anew by the array of wonders and delights.   
She marveled over clever toys, clothiers, candy stores, displays of artwork.   
Daniel noticed her lingering to admire a gold pendant in the shape of a castle in miniature, its towers and parapets reminding her of home.   
"Would you like that?"   
"It is lovely," she said.   
"Let me buy it for you, and a chain to put it on."   
The shopkeep approached, hearing this, and gasped as he glimpsed Hippolyta's features beneath the hood. But rather than the fear she   
would have expected to see, the elderly man's face broke into a surprised smile. He said nothing to the effect, but she gathered that he was   
pleased as could be to have a gargoyle in his establishment.   
This so overwhelmed her that she could not protest when Daniel purchased the pendant and a fine gold chain, and urged her to put it on.   
Next, he took her to a place that made and sold gingerbread and sweet baked goods. She yielded to her species' fond craving for such   
things, letting him buy her a bagful of temptation.   
"What do your people do for the holidays?" he asked as they walked a festive street past a building whose murals showed moments from   
child-fables. "Do you celebrate Christmas?"   
"The Magus told us of the human holidays. But the three of them, the Magus and the Princess and the Guardian, kept their observances   
small and to themselves. If there were gargoyle holidays, they did not know of them and could not teach us. But we made celebrations of   
our own for the longest and shortest nights of the year, and for our Hatching-Time."   
He mulled that over. "Do you believe in God?"   
"I believe in many, and have seen them. Anubis, Zeus, Freya, Coyote … there are many gods on Avalon now. But not this one over-god   
of yours, who sends ghosts to do his breeding for him with the mate of another male."   
Daniel burst out laughing. "What a way to put it!"   
"My brother Pericles, our scholar and star-gazer, says that at one time there must have been gods of the gargoyles as well. Like the Dragon   
in the night sky that watches over us, or the statue that stands near the grove of the Entombed Lady. But as we were raised by humans, we   
had no elders to pass down their lore."   
"Maybe you should ask Goliath. His clan has an elder, I think."   
Hippolyta swallowed. "Ask Goliath? Oh, no, my friend … I could not do that."   
"He's not as fearsome as he looks," Daniel teased.   
"I assure you, I find his looks not in the _least_ fearsome," she said frankly. "But it is as I said before. I cannot go to them … I cannot rejoin   
my clan, nor petition for a place in theirs. Although it was never my will to do so, my actions have made me an outcast."   
"I don't believe that."   
"If they are linked with the Illuminati, as your parents say, how would they accept me when I have been in league with the enemy?"   
"That wasn't your fault. Goliath comes across as strict, but I'm sure he's fair-minded. If you explained --"   
"Explained in detail how I dishonored my clan?" She shook her head vigorously, then brushed her errant braids back into her hood. "It is   
better that, if they hear of me at all, it is that I died in battle. It was a battle I was not supposed to be in … and I was disobedient of our leader."   
"As I understand it, if you hadn't disobeyed her, all four of your brothers would probably have died."   
"That is not the point."   
"I think it is, and if it isn't, it should be."   
"You are the fair-minded one, Daniel. Our ways may be less forgiving."   
"I also think you're underestimating your own kind."   
"How is it that you can claim to know us better than I can myself, when I am one?"   
"Because I'm looking at it from the outside," he said. "You're too busy beating yourself up on the inside to be objective."   
"It does not matter. I cannot return to them. Not to Avalon, certainly. Not to Tourmaline, even if I could find them – their journeys may   
have taken them anywhere by now! And least of all to Goliath's clan … I would not be welcome there. I was once unkind to Elektra."   
"Families argue. Look at mine."   
"I know what you seek to do, and I value it … but my course is set."   
"That makes it sound like you're planning to leave."   
"I cannot stay at your parents' home forever. They are most hospitable, but I know they do not truly wish me there."   
"Where will you go? You don't want to be alone."   
"No," she said, looking down. "But there must be a place for me somewhere, a place where my misguided past will not bring shame upon   
me, a place where I can start afresh."   
"You're not going to do anything dramatic like disappear mysteriously into the night, are you?" he said with exaggerated suspicion. "You'll   
at least give me a little warning, say good-bye?"   
"I can do that much," she said, smiling despite herself.   
"I guess that'll have to do."   
At his urging, she agreed to dine in one of their restaurants, although there was no way to do so without attracting notice. But he arranged   
forthem to have a private corner booth, removed from the inquisitive stares of those around them, and as the hour had grown late they had   
the room muchly to themselves anyway.   
Following a meal the likes of which she had not enjoyed since Avalon, her belly full of roasted meat and rich ale, he bought them a ride in   
a carriage. They toured the town, hearing more singing and passing under rainbow stars of light, pulled by a massive white draft horse whose   
hooves clopped a slow beat while the bells on his harness jangled merrily.   
When that was done, Daniel grudgingly suggested that it was time they go back, and only then confided in her that he'd gone without telling   
anyone and Mr. Dawes would be climbing the walls in frustration.   
"But he is your honor-guard!" she said, aghast. "You did not tell him?"   
"They need to realize that even if I decide to go along with their wishes, I'm still my own man. I won't be babied, and I won't be controlled.   
The Illuminati may have shaped me into who I am, but it's still my choice what to do with it, until and unless they come up with some sort of way   
to sap my free will."   
"I hope for your sake that they do not."   
As expected, Mr. Dawes was livid when they returned to the house in the mountains. The senior Harmonds were waiting up as well, and   
greeted their offspring with looks of severe disapproval when he came in unapologetic and challenging.   
Hippolyta understood very clearly that this discussion was no place for her. With a polite expression of thanks to Daniel, and a silent message   
of strength and well-wishing conveyed in the squeeze of her handclasp, she left him to do what he had to do. 

** 

She woke the next night to find that the Harmonds had all flown to Seattle for the day, and she had the house to herself with the exception   
of Mrs. Asherby, the housekeeper, and the young doctor.   
From Daniel, she'd heard the strange tale of Dr. Sevarius …   
"About seventeen years ago," he'd told her, "before they were succeeding with sheep and cows, a secret scientific foundation decided to   
research human cloning," he said. "One of the scientists in charge of the project was Anton Sevarius, and when he realized he was close to a   
breakthrough, he decided to use his own genetic material for the experiments. It took a couple of years of trial and error, but they finally   
brought a viable embryo to term."   
Hippolyta had shuddered. "That seems so unnatural."   
"Which was why they were doing it in secret, and why the public still doesn't know. The arguments would go on forever about the ethical   
issues – for instance, what if they cloned Hitler, Hussein, Babcock? Is evil a genetic trait? Most of the scientists felt that the answer to that was   
no, that personality develops with upbringing, environment, and experience. A clone would be genetically identical to the original, but would   
be very different psychologically. But for Anton Sevarius, that wasn't an acceptable answer. He wanted to create an _exact_ duplicate of   
himself."   
For some reason, that had made Hippolyta think of the Archmage and how he'd been in two places at once, doubling himself to better   
strike against them. She'd shuddered again.   
Daniel had nodded. "Creepy, isn't it? So Sevarius, using primitive memory encoding and hypnotic techniques being developed by his   
brother, effectively recreated his own life experiences in the mind of the infant clone. The boy grew up believing he was, and to all intents   
and purposes, _being_, another Anton Sevarius."   
"So that is he? The youth?"   
"Exactly. Fifteen years old, but with the mind and memories of a much older man. He resented being treated as an experiment and   
escaped with the help of another scientist, a friend of my mother's. As far as we know, the original Sevarius has no idea what became   
of him."   
Ever since hearing that, she had been even less at ease in the presence of the younger version. Not that she'd ever been before; everything   
in the way he looked at her stated that he saw her as a specimen to be examined and analyzed.   
She had turned down his requests for more blood and tissue samples as politely as possible – he'd surely taken plenty when examining   
her upon her arrival -- and did her best to divert or avoid his probing questions about herself and her clan. But, undeterred, he kept asking   
at every opportunity, and when faced with no other company than him, she elected to seek her own entertainment.   
The mountains beckoned, so from the window of the guest room she slipped out and climbed to the roof and then dove into the refreshingly   
icy air. The night was clear, the moon turning the snow to mystic silver and casting her shadow liquidly over the drifts and valleys below.   
It had been a long time since she'd had the chance for unconstrained gliding and she reveled in it. She swooped low to skim the surface   
of the lake, which was ringed with ice but not frozen over. A few fish snapped at her dangling tail – had she been Fia, she could have snatched   
them from the water with expert skill.   
When she needed a rest, she perched amid the trees and swayed with them as the wind whispered through the evergreen needles, loosing   
their piney scent. Twice, she saw tracks, and once the deer themselves, but rather than take aim, she let them pass unhampered.   
Hunting would be good here, and the land was majestic … it would have made a good home for a clan. But the longer she glided, the more   
keenly she felt the absence of others. Such a fine place for gargoyles, and she was the only one.   
When the sadness of this outweighed the joy she felt in gliding, she returned to the house. She found the library unoccupied, built high the   
fire and sank into a deep leather chair to read by the dancing orange light.   
She tried to engross herself in a book, but it was a collection of tales of the Sleeping King, which only reminded her all the more of the clan   
she'd left behind. It did no good to think of them, to imagine how Fia would love that lake or Malachi would relish hunting the dark forest. It   
did no good to remember games of skill played with her sisters, games of love played with her brothers.   
They were lost to her now, and she to them, and by thinking of them she would only bring herself pain.   
But oh, what a difficult resolve to make!   
She chose another book at random, and as it was about a comet hitting the Earth and the struggles of the humans to survive, found little in   
it to remind her of her woes. She was still reading when she dimly heard the sound of the Harmonds returning, and when Daniel peeked into   
the library to say hello.   
"How was the …" she strove to remember the word. "Nutcrack?"   
"Nutcracker," he said. "Disturbing … last year, we saw it with Karen Wyatt, the pop psychologist, and after listening to her analysis of it   
as a tale of an old toymaker's twisted lech for his nubile young granddaughter, it makes it difficult to watch in a wholesome, family holiday   
tradition sort of spirit. And Mother was irked as usual, because Father fell asleep, as usual."   
He took the chair opposite her, and tipped his head back as if he meant to take a nap of his own. Hippolyta wondered what his elegant   
mother had thought of her husband's lapse in manners, grinning to herself as she pondered it.   
Daniel did not seem inclined to talk further, so she left him to his rest and went back to her book. The comet had struck, and disaster   
ruled rampant, and if that wasn't enough, now the heroes were facing a cannibal army.   
Riveted by their plight, she found herself raising the gold chain to her mouth, resting it against her lower lip and sliding the pendant back   
and forth. She took some obscure soothing in the sound/vibration of the metal against itself -- _vreep-vroop-vreep-vroop _– and the tingle   
it made.   
She gradually realized that she was being observed, and glanced up from her book to see Daniel looking at her with a strange intensity.   
Her hand paused, the chain indenting the fullness of her lower lip, as their eyes locked.   
When Michelle Jessec had looked at Corwin that way, Hippolyta had found it funny in an endearing, pitiful sort of way. Not only, after   
all, did Corwin yearn little for females, but Michelle was a human and he was a gargoyle, and aberrations like that which had spawned Elektra   
aside, everyone knew that simply wasn't right. Like Carnelian and Elswyth and their hopeless pining for Oberon's Children.   
And yet …   
And yet suddenly there was nothing funny at all in having Daniel look on her that way …   
The pendant slipped from her nerveless fingers and thumped gently against her breastbone. Her breath seemed caught in her lungs, her   
face felt warm. She could not break the gaze, trapped by his grey-blue eyes.   
All at once, she was seeing him not as a human but simply as a _male_, a revelation that shocked her almost as much as the knowledge   
that he was seeing her as a female rather than a gargoyle.   
For a male, yes, he was appealing in many ways. Well-formed, handsome of face, graceful of movement, with an air about him to   
suggest he would be considerate of a female's desires rather than a selfish rutter.   
Neither of them seemed able to speak. It was as if a force was building in the room, building between them, and a single word might   
unleash it with devastating consequences.   
They might have stayed that way for hours, if from elsewhere in the house a silvery trill of laughter from Cecily Harmond hadn't broken   
the spell. They both jumped, and Hippolyta stared at the book in her hand with barely an inkling of what the printed symbols on the page   
meant.   
Daniel coughed weakly against his fist. "Ah. Hmm. That was certainly …"   
"Odd," she finished.   
"You mean you don't often have that effect on men?" His tone was light and bantering, but there was a seriousness underlying it that   
brought back all the tension of the moment just passed.   
_Not humans,_ she was about to say, but stopped. That would be the wrong thing. As she deliberated, he looked her again in the eyes.   
"Do you know," he said, "how beautiful you are? How powerfully erotic?"   
A melting quiver ran from the nape of her neck along the joinings of her wings to the base of her tail. "Would you like to make loveplay   
with me?"   
"God, yes!" Daniel laughed, shattering the intensity of the mood. "Who wouldn't? The most sensual, exciting …"   
"I spoke in seriousness. Would you like to? Now, tonight?"   
It was his turn to be struck speechless, as if what she'd said was utterly beyond his comprehension.   
"Because," she went on, "I would like you as my lover. If you are willing."   
He slowly rose from his chair. Still in the finery he'd worn to the opera, missing only the tuxedo jacket and tie and having loosened the   
collar, he was undeniably human … and yet, somehow, that was part of the attraction.   
She stood too, wings caped and falling around her in leathery-velvety folds. Wondering if she, all talons and tail and spurs and ridge,   
with her copper skin set aflame by the firelight, looked at once as alien and exotic to him as he did to her.   
His answer to that unasked question was to step toward her, and lift his hand to stroke gentle fingertips from her temple to her jawline,   
his expression one of awe and growing desire.   
Hippolyta copied his gesture, feeling the fair skin so much finer than hers, the almost undetectable rasp of his chin.   
Daniel caressed the soaring crown of her brow ridge, then cupped her face in his hands and brought it closer to his. Their lips neared, the   
kiss imminent –   
And then, from much closer in the house, came his mother's musical laugh again, followed by her voice. "Daniel? Where has he gotten to,   
I wonder?"   
They froze, only inches apart.   
"Damn!" he whispered. "I can't … not here, not in my parents' house!"   
A primal urge, perhaps bestowed in her by the spirit of the Amazon queen for whom she'd been named, almost made Hippolyta simply   
seize him and bear him away as her prize and conquest. But she mastered it and backed away, finding her chair and grabbing up her book   
just as Cecily Harmond stepped into the room and switched on the light. 

** 

It was like nothing Hippolyta had ever known before. In her previous loveplay encounters, the offer was taken up and followed through   
quite promptly. There was no need to wait, no need to prolong the inevitable. Instead, she and her brothers tended to leap headlong into the   
delights of the flesh.   
That was not how it was to be with Daniel, and it left her feeling vexedly impatient and at the same time, curiously inflamed. The anticipation,   
the delay of fulfillment, these were new things to her.   
Soon, she was nearly to the point of leaping upon him, parents' house or no. Shredding the clothes from him and finding out once and for   
all just what the differences were … and more importantly, what were the similarities. Could he bring her pleasure? Could she do the same   
for him?   
Where did one caress a human, anyway? With no wing joints, elbow spurs, brow ridge, or tail, she was at something of a loss. There had   
to be at least a little preliminary before she went right for the root of the matter, so to speak.   
Her nights passed in an increasing, pleasant discomfort. Circumstance didn't allow another private outing, and sometimes it seemed to   
Hippolyta as if the rest of the humans were conspiring against her. For the man Dawes was often finding some reason to be nearby, or Daniel's   
mother had some function he needed to attend.   
Whenever they were together, though, they stole what moments they could. These served to only heighten their condition. A quick touch in   
the hallway, a lingering look over dinner when all else were oblivious, the smolder of promise in each other's eyes …   
He found her one night as she was standing on the deck overlooking the lake, her hair dusted with powdery flakes as she watched the   
snowfall. She looked at him, all challenge and invitation, and saw his yearning response.   
"Aren't you cold out here?" he asked, sweeping his gaze over her and the summery dress that was all to stand between her skin and the   
winter's breath.   
His mother had found a trunk of old clothing in the attic, items left behind after a visit from Daniel's cousin Julianna. With some slight   
modifications, they fit her well enough once the backs were cut out of the dresses.   
Hippolyta found wearing them to be at once disturbing – the woman to whom they'd belonged was dead – and consoling – the woman   
to whom they'd belonged had been beloved of a gargoyle.   
"The princess always told us that the cruellest winters never much troubled our ancestors, so I find this little bit of cold to be no bother   
at all. But you … where is your coat?"   
"I saw you out here, and didn't think to go get it." He came closer, and she moved to meet him. "Damn, I wish I didn't have to go to   
Olympia tomorrow! But I rsvp'd to that Christmas party two months ago, and I suppose I'd better attend."   
"You've decided, haven't you? To do as they wish?" She brushed snow from his shoulders, more an excuse to touch him than anything   
else, as more of it kept falling and rendered her efforts futile.   
"I don't know." He glanced at the dark mirror of the lake, then back to her. His fingertips stroked her cheek. "Lately, I can hardly think   
of anything but you."   
"Have you any idea," she said, voice dropping to a throaty growl, "how close I am to just carrying you off of this balcony to some   
hideaway in the woods?"   
"I don't know how well I'd perform while freezing my --"   
"I'd keep you warm." She slid her arms around his waist and folded her wings forward to envelop him, pressing the heat of her body   
against his.   
They were of almost an exact height, face to face, and she knew that the time had finally arrived for their long-awaited kiss. His lips   
were softer than she expected, tasting faintly of his after-dinner brandy.   
It began gently, but Hippolyta's long-deprived passions overtook her. How long had it been? Since before the breeding season …   
months ago that suddenly seemed like years. She clung to Daniel fiercely, kissing him with the fire that she'd once bestowed on her brothers.   
Beneath the concealing cloak of her wings, his hands moved. Not to her back, where the membranes of her wings met, but to her breasts.   
Almost as good! She arched into him, encouraging him to touch her more firmly.   
She reached up to his back, got no response, and corrected by sliding down to grasp his buttocks. No tail springing from above them,   
but his muffled groan of joy was encouragement enough.   
Their lips parted to allow them a much-needed breath.   
"What do you like?" he whispered. "What makes you happy?"   
"Here," she said, guiding his hand up her spine. "Pet me here. What do you like?"   
"What you're doing is just fine!" he assured her, and kissed her again. "That idea about carrying me off into the woods, that's sounding   
better and better all the time."   
"Don't tempt me."   
"Don't I already? Because you tempt me almost more than I can stand."   
"Oh, you do, you do! There are so many things I want to do, I'd hardly know where to begin! I want to nibble over every inch of you,   
feel you kiss your way along my wing struts, wrap my tail around your waist …"   
A pager went off.   
Without missing a kiss, he pulled it from his pocket and tossed it over the rail. It spun off into the snow, a string of indignant beeps trailing   
after.   
Moments later, however, they had to leap apart as Mr. Dawes flung open the back door. "Mr. Harmond?"   
"Here, Dawes," Daniel said, breathless and sounding highly annoyed.   
Hippolyta caped her wings and raised her chin, attempting to look unconcerned, but by the narrowed glint of Dawes' eyes she realized   
they hadn't been quick enough to keep him from seeing.   
"I tried to page you."   
"The batteries must be dead." He lied with great facility, but Hippolyta could still hear the faint beeps coming from somewhere downhill   
and imagined that Dawes could as well.   
"Your mother says that if we're going to leave at six tomorrow, we should all turn in early." Dawes glared pointedly at Hippolyta.   
The magic word – mother – had been spoken. Daniel grimaced and sighed, and Hippolyta bid a sad farewell to her arousal.   
"Fine," Daniel said curtly. "I'll be in soon."   
Dawes nodded and retreated, but the door did not close all the way and his shadow betrayed him as he tried to listen in.   
"Do you ever have the feeling that they don't want us to spend any time together?" Daniel said, and beneath his isn't-that-a-silly-notion   
tone was sincere irritation. "I'm a grown man, not a little boy."   
"After all this time, they still do not trust me," Hippolyta said, deliberately misunderstanding him. "They think I may still try to harm you."   
"I don't think that's it at all." His blue-grey gaze told her he wasn't fooled by her pretense. "Why don't you come with us?"   
"To the senator's party?" Her brow ridges climbed high. "I couldn't do that!"   
"Why not? It's not until night after next. We'd have tomorrow evening to get you fitted for a gown, and since Courtney and I have so   
publicly broken up, I don't have a date. You could come with us in the plane tomorrow --"   
"I'll be sleeping in stone."   
"If we're leaving at six, it won't be dawn yet," he countered. "You can sleep during the flight."   
"And then what? Send men with a truck to move me from the airport to your hotel?"   
"Why not?"   
"I … should think about it," she said. "Part of me would love to go and see such an event of finery and celebration, and it _is_ on the   
longest night of the year, a special one to us … but part hesitates."   
"Well, all right. You have until five in the morning to think it over." He snapped a glance at the door and scowled at Dawes' lurking   
shadow. Rather than risk a kiss, he touched his forefinger to his lips, then hers. "I'll see you then."   
"Sleep well," she said.   
He went inside, and she turned to the lake again. She tried to concentrate on the falling snow, the silent majesty of the white-shrouded   
trees, instead of what Daniel might be doing … undressing in the amber lamplight of his room, burrowing beneath a down comforter, resting   
his head on a pillow … murmuring her name into the darkness as he remembered how she'd felt in his arms …   
The lake, look at the lake, think about the lake.   
When she had finally succeeded in regaining control, she went back into the house. All was quiet in the kitchen, though the low drone of   
a television and a line of faded blue light came from under the door to Mrs. Asherby's room. The dining room was dark, the living room   
likewise.   
But the door to the library was standing ajar, and firelight glowed through. Her heart skipping a beat, Hippolyta ventured that way. In   
her mind's eye she could see the very images she'd been trying so hard to suppress … Daniel, waiting for her, meaning to finish what they'd   
started …   
She eased the door the rest of the way open and stopped, drawing in a hiss of air.   
"Hippolyta," said Gregory Harmond. "Do come in. Sit down. I need to speak with you."   
Brimming with not-unfounded apprehension, she took the chair he indicated and arranged her wings and tail neatly.   
It had been almost two weeks since she'd been brought here and in that time he'd hardly said a hundred words to her. But he watched   
her, oh yes, with an evaluating detachment.   
She knew that in the past he had been a soldier himself, a leader, a hero. He looked it as well – a striking older man whose resemblance   
to his son was very evident but hardened somehow by brutal experience.   
Tense pauses and long awkward silences were among those things Hippolyta disliked most, so when he showed no sign of beginning,   
she rushed in. "Is something the matter, Mr. Harmond? Have I done something?"   
As if he'd only been waiting for her to speak first, he smiled thinly. "I was hoping you could tell me. Just what is your relationship with   
my son?"   
Her breath snagged. Humans and their taboos … "We are friends."   
"Friends."   
"I mean him no harm, I swear to you."   
"Is that so?"   
"Yes, it is so."   
"I wonder."   
"Why?" she asked. "What have I done to make you think otherwise?"   
"Oh, it's not that," he said expansively. "I'm sure, as we all are, that if you meant to do any _physical_ harm, you already would have."   
"Physical?"   
"Mr. Dawes is concerned with my son's physical welfare. That's his job, and he is, generally speaking, good at it. He erred in not being   
with Daniel that one night, and for that, he will be some time making amends. But there are other sorts of harm, Hippolyta."   
"I don't understand what you mean," she said warily.   
"My wife, for instance, suspects you have something more devious in mind. She knows Lorraine Diamant, you see. She wouldn't put it   
past Lorraine to have staged the entire attack just to get you close to Daniel, so that you could win him over and then break his heart. She's   
worried about his _emotional_ welfare."   
Hippolyta realized her mouth was agape and closed it sharply. "I --"   
"I think that Cecily is giving Lorraine too much credit. Cecily thinks that's what is happening because that is what _she_ would do if the   
situations were reversed. Besides, you gargoyles, for all of your many admirable qualities, lack a talent for subterfuge. You're no seductress   
with only cold motive in mind."   
"No, of course not!"   
"I'm prepared, therefore, to take the events of that night at face value. You were supposed to kill my son, you had a change of heart, and   
saved him."   
"Yes."   
"But that could be, couldn't it, exactly what the Coalition was counting on?"   
Lost again, she only looked at him in confusion.   
"That you would go against them, be taken into our confidence."   
"And then what?" she asked. "Return to them with knowledge of your secrets?"   
"Possibly." But he dismissed it with a flutter of his hand. "More likely, your defection was a secondary plan. Because, you see, Hippolyta,   
they might have reasoned that Daniel would be attracted to you. A man like him would have a weakness for any beautiful female entering his   
life in such a dramatic fashion. And you can't deny, it was dramatic. He described you to me as a gargoyle version of the Diana, the Roman   
goddess of the hunt … _I_ knew he wanted you before _he_ knew it."   
"Is there a point to this?" She was still mystified, but that didn't stop her from being offended.   
Not the least of which was that part of her took umbrage at the comparison – she'd _met_ Diana/Artemis, plank-chested athletic chastity-   
obsessed adolescent that she was, and aside from archery, they had nothing in common!   
"The point, Hippolyta, is that while Mr. Dawes is concerned about Daniel's physical well-being and my wife is concerned about his emotions,   
I have his best political interests in mind. While he is going to be a candidate for tolerance and acceptance, those only stretch so far. To have   
him linked with a gargoyle would be a telling blow to his aspirations."   
"You mean … you mean …"   
"That if word got out he had a gargoyle for a lover, it would destroy his Presidential future and undo everything we've been working toward.   
_That_ is the Coalition's back-up plan. If killing him didn't work, try ruining him with scandal. Which is a sloppy way to do things; the Illuminati   
tend to approach matters in the reverse order and then only if all other efforts fail."   
The sheer enormity of what he was saying simply would not sink in to her stunned, protesting mind.   
"I like you, Hippolyta, I do," Gregory Harmond went on. "I believe that you've stumbled into a situation too big for you, but that's no fault   
of yours."   
"You don't want me to be Daniel's lover."   
"Exactly." He beamed, pleased she finally understood.   
"What about what he wants? Or does that not matter? Has it ever mattered? You speak of _his_ aspirations, _his_ future … you mean _yours_."   
"Semantics. It doesn't make a difference."   
"You've used him all his life!"   
"I've guided his path toward something far greater."   
"And you think that if he and I were lovers, no one would vote for him."   
"Now you see my point. While it's all fine and well to support gargoyle rights, and we do, the country's not ready to face interspecies affairs.   
It would make a statement for you two to be seen together, but it's the wrong time for that statement."   
"What if he doesn't want to be President?"   
Harmond chuckled as if she were a child who'd just told an amusing joke. "It's what he's been raised to be, even if he didn't know it. If you   
didn't know you were a gargoyle, you'd still protect. It's in your blood, your instinct. Daniel's the same way. He can't help it. It's his destiny."   
"You would force him to give up his own wishes and happiness for what you want?"   
"My wishes are for his happiness. He's going to have a life of accomplishments and good deeds, steering this country and indeed this world   
toward a bright new future. His Presidency will be to the benefit of all, gargoyles as well as humans. You can't expect that he'd choose an affair –   
even with someone as exotic and exciting as you – over that."   
"What would you have of me?" she asked hotly. "That I spurn him, push him away?"   
"Knowing you as I do, the moment I forbade you to have anything to do with my son, you would in the spirit of youthful headstrong rebellion   
seek to do just the opposite. So I forbid nothing. But I hope to make you understand, Hippolyta, how selfish an act it would be. Daniel could   
bring about a drastic change in the welfare of gargoyles, could bring them hope, justice, rights. Are you going to be the one to take that away   
from them?"   
She jumped up from the chair. "Why must the welfare of gargoyles rest always on _my_ head? First Diamond, threatening to use me as the   
example to bring harm on the rest, and now this!"   
Harmond was unperturbed by her outburst. "You know that Daniel could be a great leader. He could help your kind in a way that no one   
else could. But not if the people see him as a gargoyle-lover in the literal sense of the world. A deviant, a pervert, if you'll pardon the terms."   
"And am I one as well, for lusting after a _human_?" She spat the word with every bit as much venom as ever she'd heard Tourmaline muster,   
and was rewarded by seeing Harmond blanch.   
"That's hardly the same thing. This is my son we're talking about, after all."   
"If it is no shame for me to desire him, then it is no shame for him to desire me," she stated. "And what we do together is no one's business   
but our own."   
"Typically impetuous response," he said. "The young are ruled by their hearts and other less-mentionable organs. Whether it is anyone   
else's business or not, that isn't the way this world works. Not these days. The lives of the famous are the stuff of magazine articles and late-   
night monologues, and Daniel is famous. He will be more so. How do you think it would look to the people of this glorious nation if he turned   
up on the cover of _V.I.P_. kissing a gargoyle?"   
"So it isn't that you care what he does, only what it is _known_ that he does?" she asked incredulously. "Is that what matters to you?"   
"In politics, it's all that matters to anyone."   
"Very well, then!" she said, feeling that the only way through this mess was like the solution to the story of Alexander and the knot, to   
cleave right through the middle and be done with the foolishness. "We will do as we will but let no one else know!"   
"Oh, my poor sweet gargoyle child," he laughed. "It's not that easy. It's nowhere near that easy. Discretion is all fine and well but you   
can't expect to keep something like that a secret. Then, when it _is_ found out, it's a scandal all the juicier because you were trying to hide it.   
That was Clinton's problem … that he lied and tried to hide the truth. If he'd just stood up and been a man and said 'yes, I did have sex with   
that woman,' the people wouldn't have lost nearly as much faith in him. It was the weaseling that undid him."   
"I neither know nor care who this Clinton is and who he sexed with," Hippolyta said. "What are you saying? That it is not good enough to   
have my vow of discretion?"   
"That's just what I'm saying."   
"Rrrargh!" She swatted a brass desk lamp off of the table. "How dare you!"   
"You said yourself you were an oathbreaker," he pointed out smugly.   
"I … you … rrrargh!" This time, she spared the furnishings, but fisted her hands so tightly that her claws impaled her palms. If she'd had   
her bow –   
"That was unkind on my part," he said. "What I meant is that I'm sure you would have the best of intentions, but mistakes happen. One slip,   
one shutterbug in the wrong place, and it'd all be over."   
Her blood was thundering, thundering. She saw Harmond through the red film of her own blazing eyes, but he just sat there unconcerned,   
as if there was no chance at all she might lunge at him and pull out his larynx in strings and clumps.   
And as he sat there, looking serenely into her scarlet gaze, she gradually felt her pulse ease, because he was right. That wasn't about to   
happen.   
She blinked and the room was normal again. "Then what is it that you want?"   
"What's best for my son, this country, and all the humans and gargoyles in it."   
"What do you want from _me_, you aggravating man! That I make no more loveplay with your son?"   
"Don't you think that would be best for all concerned?"   
"I see … it's not enough to give me an order. You must make me agree, as if it was my own decision!"   
"That's preferred, yes."   
"Am I to leave?"   
"I'd hate to turn you out when you have nowhere to go, but you do understand the complications of having you here. We don't really have   
an official capacity for you."   
"Unless I were to volunteer to work with Dr. Sevarius?"   
"I doubt you'd much care for that, but if you insist …"   
"I do not!"   
"At any rate, I'm not going to ask you to leave tonight. You did save my son's life and you gave us much invaluable information about our   
enemies, and for that I owe you a considerable debt. Please stay on as our guest for a while, but think about what I've said. Think about it   
very carefully," he advised as he rose from his chair.   
"I will," Hippolyta said. "You can have no doubt of that!" 

** 

As the rest of them slept, she wandered. She trudged afoot through deep snow, since her wings felt leaden with the weight of her dilemma.   
It occurred to her once that she was leaving tracks that might alarm any hiker or hunter, but by then she had already walked so far that it   
would be pointless to retrace and erase her steps.   
She replayed her conversation with Gregory Harmond in her mind as she went. Or, rather, his lecture to her … she didn't recall actually   
contributing much.   
Having him tell her at every turn what she was thinking of doing rather took the wind out of the sails of doing it. What was the point in   
rebelling when the one she'd be rebelling against had already predicted it? She'd be doing precisely as he expected …   
Or was it his plan to tell her that, know that she'd be contrary, and do something else, which was _truly_ what he wanted?   
What he'd said about the Coalition … could he be right? Had Diamond planned it just this way?   
How she yearned for Avalon and her own clan! The devious machinations of these humans made even the scheming and pranks of   
Oberon's folk seem tolerable by comparison. Titania herself might have had trouble matching wits with these conspiring mortals! The   
straightforward ways of her own kind might seem simplistic, but at least they made sense!   
It all made her head ache, as if a tight band of iron was clamped from temple to temple, just trying to figure things out. About the only   
thing of which she was sure was that Daniel was her friend, was attracted to her, and she returned the feelings.   
But now, all of a sudden, what had seemed so plain a thing –one act of loveplay, no great feat, a mere frolicsome encounter – was   
layered with meanings and consequences the likes of which she would never have considered. Strange that so much, the fate of the world   
if Gregory Harmond was to be believed, hinged on whether or not she and Daniel gave in to their attraction.   
Humans, Hippolyta decided as she flopped on her back to make a snow angel without even trying, worried far too much about the   
ramifications of sex. She'd always been peripherally aware that they considered it something to be ashamed of, something dirty, this most   
natural of urges. They built it up in their minds with far too much meaning and import, instead of letting it be only the pleasure it was meant   
to be.   
Why else would their human parents on Avalon have been in such a mess? Even as adolescents, she and some of her siblings had   
speculated on it. The Magus loved the princess, that was clear. The princess felt fondly for him as well, but only gave her bodily affections   
to Guardian Tom. And then only in secret, in private, never showing a hint of passion when anyone else was around. If not for the accidental   
discovery made by Malachi, Ruth, Gabriel, and Angela, the clan might never have known what their various parts were for!   
Thinking that, she laughed aloud in the silvery-indigo night. No, she was sure that they would have figured it out sooner or later, once the   
advent of maturity had brushed them and wakened them to new possibilities.   
The Magus, when pressed for details, had grudgingly admitted to them that their gargoyle ancestors had not been shy about their actions,   
particularly during the breeding season. Some might seek privacy now and then, should the mood so strike, and sometimes they would defer   
to the prince out of courtesy for the so-easily-offended human sensibilities, but in general they had not been afraid, nor ashamed, to do what   
came naturally.   
Why was it such a great concern to the humans? Why were they mortified by nudity, as Michelle Jessec had been at the sight of the unclad   
Cassius? Why did they, as she'd frequently observed from the magazines and television, spend such time and energy fretting over what others   
did?   
Incomprehensible. Yet she had to try and understand it, because for some reason it seemed to matter so vitally to Gregory Harmond what   
transpired between herself and his son.   
It wasn't as if she meant to take Daniel as her _mate_, for the Dragon's sake! It wasn't as if she meant to try _breeding_ with him! What harm   
could a bit of loveplay do?   
But as she thought about that, she recalled her own first reaction upon realizing that the human Elisa Maza meant more than a friend to great   
Goliath. Hadn't it brought down the legend of him a little in her eyes? Hadn't she disdained him, _him_, ever so slightly for it? And hadn't her   
thought upon learning of Elektra's parentage been the same – a sour recoiling of the spirit at the idea of a gargoyle female breeding with a human   
male?   
Staring up at the sky, feeling the cold of her snowy bed begin to sink into her bones, Hippolyta began to feel the first stirrings of understanding.   
As she had looked with scorn (ever so slightly, let us remember, ever so slightly) on Goliath for his strange habits, or the pitying-but-mocking   
tolerance with which her clan had regarded the lovestruck Elswyth or Carnelian, smitten as they were with those of the Children, so might the   
humans look upon Daniel.   
She chuffed indignantly, blowing a frosty cloud into the air, then caught herself. _That's different; I'm a gargoyle, _had been the thought forming   
in her mind, and she recognized it immediately for the arrogance that it was. It was more the sort of thing she would expect to hear from the lips   
of Tourmaline.   
Different, but no better, no worse.   
That was the key. Gargoyles were not better than humans … the Third Race were not better than gargoyles (though she could just see herself   
saying as much to any of them, because they had taken arrogance and made it into a way of life).   
"In general, of course," she whispered with a grin, seeing her words take form in the thin tendrils of her breath. In _general_ the races were   
largely even … but individuals of each might tower in all ways over individuals of the other.   
Her pride thus mollified by that qualification, Hippolyta rose from the snow and shook a crusting of it from her wings.   
She returned to the house in the wee small hours, aware that she had come no closer to solving the problem but had at least taken some steps   
toward understanding it. Although it was only four-thirty in the morning, darkness still holding a solid black reign over this part of the earth, some   
lights were already aglow.   
Hippolyta took care to stamp and shake the rest of the snow from her before she went in, not wishing to make extra work for the housekeeper   
by tracking all across the floor. She heard the dim hiss and thunder of a shower, the soft strains of a violin from deeper in the house.   
Those sounds grew louder as she made her way to her own room. A door opened, and although Hippolyta could have sworn she'd been quiet   
as a cloud moving across the moon, Cecily Harmond smiled and said, "Hippolyta! I thought I heard you out here. Come in, dear, come in and sit   
with me while I get ready."   
She did as she was asked, and stopped in amazement at the sight of Cecily's chamber. Or, chambers in the plural, for it was a suite consisting   
of a bedroom, a luxurious bath, and a dressing room. Everything was done in creamy white, a light pink that reminded her of her sister Miriam,   
and gold. It looked more like something that would be seen in a dollhouse than in life, yet here it was.   
The dressing table alone was enough to capture and hold the eye. All of white with knobs of gold in the shape of flowers, it had a marble top   
nearly lost under more cosmetics and beauty aids than Hippolyta had ever imagined could exist. A mirror, large enough to serve as a glass-topped   
table if laid flat, was outlined in bulbs.   
In front of this mammoth shrine to beauty was a bench, with a pink velvet cushion resting on graceful curves legs of gold. Cecily Harmond,   
swathed in a white satin robe, perched upon this seat and began rubbing lotion into her skin as she spoke to Hippolyta's reflection.   
"I understand you're coming to Senator Levesque's party with us."   
"You … I … what?" She met the woman's reflected eyes, saw them crinkle faintly at the corners with mirth.   
"Poise, Hippolyta. Poise makes a lady. Clothing and accessories help, mind, but in the end it's the poise that they remember."   
"I cannot go to this party. Your husband --"   
"Oh, that. Gregory's been leaping to his conclusions again, has he? The trouble with his big picture, if you'll allow me a photographic _bon mot_,   
is that he's only looking at the negatives."   
Whatever she was saying sailed far over Hippolyta's head. She watched in trepidation as Cecily lifted a pair of tiny silvery tongs to her eyebrow.   
Her expression was most peculiar as she deliberately plucked out a hair.   
"What are you _doing_?" cried Hippolyta. For a moment it flashed in her mind that Cecily had been taken over by some spell and would torture   
herself to death.   
But Cecily only laughed. "Something you needn't worry about. Now … about your gown. I've taken the liberty of sending your measurements   
to Richard's of Olympia --" she pronounced it _ree-shar's_ – "and arranging for a hair stylist to meet us at the hotel early in the evening before the   
party. I'm not sure about the shoes, though."   
"Wait. Please. Lady Cecily --"   
She laughed again. "How I do like the sound of that! No one has called me Lady Cecily since I met that charming con man in Beaumont Sur Mer   
… he thought he could fool _me_, imagine! Oh, I did have my fun with him …"   
"I am not going to this party. I cannot."   
"You certainly can and you certainly are."   
"But your son --"   
"It was his idea, and I wholeheartedly agree."   
"Your husband does not."   
"Like I said, Gregory sees only the negative. Let me guess. He thinks that if you and Daniel appear in public together, the press will brand   
Daniel a gargoyle-lover in the literal sense of the word and all of our plans will just flutter away like so." She hooked her thumbs together and   
mimed a bird flapping.   
"So I gather."   
She picked up a small pot and began dusting her cheeks with a powder that smelled of lilacs. "How like him … but as usual, there are   
things he's failed to take into account. Gargoyles are very chic right now, and the press is simply mad to know more about this mysterious   
savior – you, my dear. If Daniel takes you to the senator's mansion, it works on many levels."   
"I don't follow."   
"To begin with, the senator will have the prestige of entertaining a gargoyle … an heroic one at that. The paparazzi will be in heaven. Your   
picture will be in every paper from here to New York."   
That made a fist of ice close slowly around Hippolyta's heart. "It will?"   
"Daniel cannot go to this affair without a date on his arm. As he and Ms. Fischer are no longer an item, it's only polite of him to extend the   
invitation to the young lady whose bravery saved his life. That's the way it will be seen. As an expression of gratitude."   
"Your husband does not approve of my keeping company with your son. Don't you know that?"   
"Of course I know that. But for heaven's sake, Hippolyta … it's only a party. Yes, people will talk if you're seen dancing together, but   
without proof, talk is only hot air, sound waves, and a little bit of spit." She began brushing at her eyelashes with something that looked like a   
spider's bristly leg coated in ink. "It's not like he hasn't danced with gargoyles before."   
"Yes, Elektra. He told me of it. But your husband was so certain it would be damaging … and now you seem so certain it wouldn't be …   
who am I to heed?"   
"Me, dear. It might look like a male-dominated society, but that's only because we let them think so."   
She smiled serenely, and it suddenly struck Hippolyta that this, this easy cultured elegance and silken-gloved power, was what Lorraine   
Diamant strove for but couldn't quite attain. Diamond's words and actions had always felt forced, full of pretense, as if she was trying to make   
of herself something other than what she was.   
"Those who don't care for gargoyles," Cecily said, "are already going to hold that against Daniel because of his friendship with them, and in   
most cases those opinions are outweighed by all the other reasons they have for admiring him. With the few exceptions of fanatics like the   
Quarrymen, his interest in gargoyles will be regarded as nothing more than a minor quirk."   
While that did somewhat echo her own thoughts of only a short while before, it rankled Hippolyta to be dismissed as a quirk … and a minor   
one at that! She opened her mouth to say as much, but Cecily interrupted her with a soft chuckle.   
"My, that didn't come out as very flattering, did it? What I meant was only that it isn't as if he were going to marry you."   
"No," Hippolyta said, touched by insight. "You have that planned out already too, don't you?"   
"Since he was eight years old, but that has nothing to do with the Illuminati or the Presidency. That's just being a mother who wants only the   
best for her son."   
"Who is the fortunate female?"   
Cecily wagged her finger. "Ah-ah-ah … and have you go tell Daniel? He's just the sort to take a disliking to her on purpose, for no other reason   
than to thwart me out of some foolish idea of rebellion."   
"So it's someone you mean to forbid him to --"   
"Reverse psychology? Do give me a bit more credit than that. They'll meet on their own, fall in love on their own, and make the decision all   
without any input from me."   
"Do you not find it callous how you do this?" Hippolyta blurted. "He is your _son_, not a piece on a board to be moved to your best advantage!   
This is his life, his heart, his happiness … and you toy with them as you will!"   
"I don't expect you to understand our ways. I love my Daniel, and mean to do all that I can to see him lead the life he deserves."   
"By taking away his freedom! You've made him a slave to what _you_ think is best … but at least a slave knows he's chained! This illusion of   
choice you give him is _worse_!"   
"I'm sure it seems that way to you." Cecily went to work on her lips with a fine plum-colored pencil, somehow still managing to speak clearly   
as she pursed and drew. "But really, Hippolyta, we're all slaves to some higher power. We all wear chains. Some are just more obvious than   
others."   
"What chains you?"   
"That's far too complicated to go into just now. I didn't ask you in here to have a debate, by the way. I thought you'd be pleased to be invited   
to join us."   
"I am not pleased to be a part of your games, whatever they may be. If I go to this thing, I go because Daniel asked me."   
"I hope you'll still accept the offer of the gown and the stylist. Since you'll be representing your people, I know you'll want to make a good   
impression."   
"My people … that is another thing! I have lost my clan, I have shamed my kind, and you expect to trot me about as a representative of my   
people? No … I go only as Hippolyta, better or worse. That is who I am, that is all I am."   
"While you might think that, you should be prepared for what everyone else will think. And they will be judging all of gargoyle-kind by your   
example. I'm sure it was the same for Elektra. She conducted herself like a princess. I hope you'll do the same."   
"She has the bloodline for it," Hippolyta muttered. "I am all warrior."   
"We'll see what you think once Richard and Consuela have had a chance to work on you." Finished with her face, Cecily turned from the   
mirror.   
It was quite amazing, really … while Hippolyta had stood there and watched her do it, the effect was one of having done nothing at all to   
achieve that flawless complexion and natural-seeming comeliness.   
"So," Cecily said. "I can count on you, can't I, to not disappoint me?"   
"You'll have the best of my manners as did Lord Oberon's court," Hippolyta said, which she inwardly knew meant that she'd be on her best   
behavior until provoked, but then would be capable of giving even a god a bruise to remember. 

**   
** 

**_Concluded in Chapter Five -- The Longest Night_**   



	5. The Longest Night

Bad Girls   
by Christine Morgan 

christine@sabledrake.com / http://www.christine-morgan.org 

Chapter Five -- The Longest Night 

**_December, 2003_**   


The senator's mansion outside of the city of Olympia was a new construction that had only been completed the previous year,   
yet tried to give the impression of having perched on that rambling hillside estate for a century or more. It might have led one to   
wonder about the corruption of the owner, had it not been so widely known that Senator Levesque had made a fortune in the   
computer industry before going into politics.   
_Another compu-geek billionaire showing off …_, Hippolyta could almost hear Hyena snidely saying in her mind.   
The structure was appropriately magnificent, and they passed through no less than three security checkpoints. The guards   
were alert, the dogs were slavering mouthsful of teeth, and motion-sensitive cameras monitored the grounds continually … and   
that was all before the limousine had even come within sight of the house.   
This all did little to reassure Mr. Dawes. He made a point of frequently reminding them that the last attempt on Daniel's life   
had been an attack from above. Fences, guards, and dogs would be of no help if the Coalition decided to try again by that   
method.   
"It's not like it's exactly a secret that we'll be here," he said.   
"So will many other dignitaries, including the Japanese ambassador and the CEO of Infiniware," said Gregory Harmond. "There   
are enough armed guards on this estate to conduct a small war."   
Hippolyta, seated across from Daniel, shifted distractedly. He noticed, knew the reason why because she'd told him before   
they got in the car, and winked slyly.   
It was the gown. While beautiful, even stunning, it hadn't taken a certain sensitive part of her anatomy into account.   
The form-fitting flow of midnight blue was woven through with gold thread so that it sparkled like a skyful of warm stars. The   
skirt reached her calves but was slit to above the knee on one side, and had a strategic hole in the back to allow for her tail. The   
neckline was deep enough to tantalize and not so deep as to be trashy, according to Cecily.   
But the material was held up by straps of gold mesh that went over her shoulders to join in a V in the back, and then made a   
straight course down her spine. It was that ribbon of mesh, metallic and cool and constantly brushing and rubbing against the patch   
of skin between her wings, that left Hippolyta in such an unsettled state.   
The man whose name was pronounced _Ree-shar _had fashioned shoes to go along with the gown, a sort of high-heeled golden   
sandal-slipper with a band across her central talon and thin ties that laced around her ankles. She also, at Cecily's insistence, wore an   
undergarment that approximated what the humans called 'panties', though what purpose the frail scrap of silk would do, Hippolyta   
couldn't imagine. Surely not for warmth, and as it was nearly see-through, not for concealment either.   
The stylist, a vivacious young woman named Consuela, had tried five or six different looks before they could all agree. Hippolyta's   
white-gold hair had been swept up on the sides and pinned with gold pins shaped like stars, and the mass that fell to her shoulder-   
blades was curled and sprayed and primped until it felt like something that no longer was part of her at all.   
For jewelry, she wore only the necklace Daniel had bought her in Leavenworth. To ward off the winter chill that she didn't feel   
anyway, she'd been presented with a mantle of sumptuous fur … and the story that went with it.   
Anton Sevarius, accompanying them under the guise of a child prodigy already in medical school at the age of fifteen, had noted   
her interest in the garment and proceeded to boastfully tell her all about it.   
Not that many years ago, several people had begun to decry the wearing of fur because it was unkind to animals. That in itself was   
something Hippolyta as a huntress had difficulty grasping, moreso when she heard that many of these same people also were against   
the consumption of meat. Daniel told her that he'd once seen a woman attending be assaulted outside of a concert hall by activists who   
doused her in red paint for wearing a fur coat.   
But thanks largely to the young Dr. Sevarius, the fur industry in Washington State was now thriving, because a way had been found   
to obtain the sought-after pelts without harming a single animal. The mantle that rested around Hippolyta's shoulders was made of fur   
that had been grown in a vat.   
Cloning … for understandable reasons, it fascinated the young doctor even more than it had his older counterpart. But he had taken   
it in a different direction, and perfected a technique that could clone only specific parts of an animal.   
So it was that these vat-grown furs went on the market. All it took was a sample of DNA, and they could grow anything. Mink.   
Ermine. Leopard. Seal. Cowhide or deerhide for leather. Snakeskin. Sharkskin. Anything.   
The vat-growth process also allowed for the creation of edible meat, but that did not do so well commercially. Plenty of humans   
might be prepared to wear what was created in the lab, long-accustomed as they were to synthetic fibers already, but few were willing   
to eat what was commonly called "vat-meat." It was thus only generally found in prisons, shelters, food banks, and anyplace relying   
on donated commodities, despite being proven more nutritious and far less expensive than animal-grown meat.   
Sevarius, or rather Harmond FutureTech on his behalf, was currently engaged in a legal and ethical battle to try and gain permission   
to extend the vat process to human tissue. The arguments in favor were plentiful – blood banks would never know shortages, organ   
and bone marrow transplants would no longer require waiting lists, burn victims could benefit from vat-grown skin.   
It wasn't even the same, Sevarius insisted, as cloning an entire human for spare parts. Only that which was needed would be   
individually grown. But despite the benevolent possibilities, too many people held out that this was an evil branch of science, that it   
could too easily be misused. Some were appalled at the idea that vat-grown tissue could be used in sex-change operations or plastic   
surgery.   
And so the battle raged on, but in the meantime, at least the fur industry was doing well. Hippolyta had to admit that, as unnatural   
and disturbing it seemed to know what she was wearing, the quality of it was exemplary.   
Gregory Harmond, sitting opposite his wife, glanced at her with an unreadable expression as she stirred. He hadn't had anything to   
say about being overruled by his wife, at least not in Hippolyta's earshot, but she could tell that he wasn't overjoyed by the situation.   
As awkward as all of this was, Hippolyta couldn't hold back a familiar tickle of excitement. Attending a ball such as this, a human   
_fete_ to try and equal Oberon's revels, and as a guest rather than condescendingly-named honor guard, was a thrill in itself.   
Added to that was the spice of danger. For who knew, Dawes may be right … another attack might be in the making and she   
would be called upon to defend Daniel once more.   
And added to _that_ was the simmering stew of her own fears and shames, brought on more strongly by Cecily's remarks about   
representing her race.   
_It should be Elektra here, not me,_ she admitted silently to herself. For all she'd looked down on Elektra in their early years   
because her shy sister preferred scholarly pursuits to hunting and fighting, for all she'd been so vicious in her remarks as to Elektra's   
mixed blood, she now saw that she'd been very wrong. Elektra had her own strengths, a grace of character that Hippolyta knew she   
could never possess.   
Soul-searching had never been a pastime of hers, but it had been pushed upon her these past several nights.   
As the limousine reached the entryway, she braced herself in expectation lest the air should be split by the roar of a jet's engines   
as Hunter and the others tried to repeat, with greater success, their previous effort. She saw the same tension in Dawes, and when   
his eyes happened upon hers, something changed.   
Perhaps Dawes saw past his mistrust and realized that come what may, Hippolyta truly did mean to protect. In that, they were   
the same, and an unwilling kinship was struck between them.   
They emerged from the vehicle into a wonderland of silver and gold. The mansion's exterior was a shimmering jewel of lights, and   
suspended from the ceiling of the arched, covered entryway were the most incredible ornaments Hippolyta had ever seen.   
Made of glass and surely heavy, they looked light as soap-bubbles floating on the air and held within them the same translucent   
rainbows. Each was more splendid than the last, swirls of light and color that seemed to move, seemed alive with a music made all   
of colors.   
"How marvelous," she breathed, gazing so raptly at the ornaments that she didn't realize until Daniel tapped her elbow that she was   
the object of much attention herself.   
The entryway was filled with humans in fine clothes, and all of them were looking at her with anything from mild interest to outright   
curiosity to shielded animosity. Being of the elite of their society, they did not blatantly stare, but she could feel the touch of their glances   
upon her like dull points of stone as she and Daniel crossed to the doors that let into the house proper.   
Cecily Harmond seemed to be enjoying the spectacle they were making, murmuring pleased noises of "I told you so" to her husband   
as she deigned to greet acquaintances with a nod here, a smile there.   
"You like the glass?" Daniel asked. In blinding white dinner jacket and black slacks, with cummerbund and tie of midnight blue that   
almost exactly matched her gown, he at once looked both formal and at ease. "The artist's right over there."   
Hippolyta turned, expecting to behold a magician as fair and unearthly as any of Oberon's most elfin Children, who could weave   
such splendor of air and light as to hold the very essence of the shifting auras of Avalon. Instead, she saw a stocky man of hard-edged   
countenance, one eye covered with a patch, his hair a mane of untamed grey. His skin was marked in many places by the burns of his   
trade.   
No, she had been wrong … no delicate enchanter here but a son of Hephaestus, making miracles in the power of his forge. More of   
his work was in evidence the moment they entered the grand chamber where the party was to be held, for the eighteen-foot fir tree was   
adorned in smaller baubles of the same craftsmanship.   
As was the star on top, which sparkled and glimmered beneath a domed skylight as if it had descended from the heavens just for   
this special occasion.   
Humans all around … she had never been in the presence of so many of them. Overwhelmed, she held tight to Daniel's arm, for the   
urge welling in her was to flee, to wheel and run from this place and their watching eyes.   
But she was a gargoyle and a warrior, and would not run.   
Thinking that instantly calmed her nerves, and she was almost able to laugh at her own foolishness. Run? From unarmed humans?   
What did she have to fear from them aside from their scorn and cruel words? Those could not harm her, and should by some chance   
a few of them produce weapons, she was sure she would be their match even without her trusty bow.   
Thus with confidence restored, she lessened her grip on Daniel – it had probably pained him, the clutch of her talons through his sleeve,   
but he bore it as stoically as any gargoyle – and was able to remember enough of the courtesies taught her by Princess Katherine to   
sweep a graceful curtsey when she was presented to the senator.   
Mariah Levesque, for all the exoticness of her name, was a woman of ordinary features, apple-cheeked and plump-hipped, with a   
matronly air about her but a firm intelligence in her blue eyes. At first, Hippolyta had wondered if this might be the prospective wife Cecily   
had in mind for Daniel, but upon meeting the woman and seeing her to be half again his age and possessed more of candor than the poise   
Cecily valued so highly, she knew that was not so.   
"Daniel," the senator said after greeting his parents. "It's good to see that you're all right. I take it this is your rescuer?"   
"None other. If I might present Hippolyta?"   
Here, she dipped that curtsey as if meeting a queen. "Madame."   
"I took the liberty of inviting her," Daniel said, and smiled a wryly self-deprecating smile that forcibly reminded Hippolyta of Corwin. "I   
know how aggravating it is to plan one of these things and then have someone show up stag and ruin the seating chart."   
The senator laughed, and out of the corner of her eye, Hippolyta saw Gregory Harmond subtly relax. It had been the right thing to say,   
she realized, making it seem as if he'd brought her both as a show of gratitude and because he had to bring _someone_. Since a substantial,   
if discreet, crowd had been nearby to listen in on the exchange, that was what would be passed along.   
Pleasantries were exchanged, hands were shaken – only a bold few dared offer their hands to Hippolyta, and some of those nervously,   
as if they expected to draw back a gushing stump. She returned all hands unharmed, ever mindful how fragile their fingerbones and skin   
were compared to her talons.   
Her initial sense of being overwhelmed gave way to one of uncertainty as the other guests began attempting conversations. Asking   
questions. She discovered that it appeared to be generally believed that she was of some undisclosed local clan, that she had been gliding   
by and chose to intervene in the evil events on the unfinished rooftop, much as the gargoyles in Manhattan were famed for doing.   
Was she of a local clan? Were there many gargoyles in Seattle? Did they plan to reveal themselves as their eastern cousins had done?   
These questions she did her best to demur, but artifice in speech was not something at which she was adept. Her discomfiture was   
probably all too apparent, but whenever she felt too trapped, Daniel or his mother would adroitly change the subject.   
What Cecily Harmond had said about 'gargoyle chic' seemed to be true … Hippolyta found herself regarded as more of a celebrity   
than a monster. Some people avoided her, yes, but others seemed fascinated, and if anyone was inclined to hate her outright, it was well-   
hidden.   
The longer she was there, the more she saw that this party was no different from ones on Avalon. The guests nibbled fanciful delicacies   
and drank, some more than others. Servants circulated, ever attentive. There was music, sometimes as an underlying background and   
sometimes for dancing. The crowd flowed and re-formed in continual slow patterns. Anecdotes were met with laughter that was sometimes   
earnest and sometimes merely polite. Matters of state or business were discussed in hushed tones. Now and then, pairs slipped away to   
continue the party in a more intimate setting.   
They weren't unlike Oberon's folk at all, though Hippolyta knew how poorly any of the Third Race might react to _that_ revelation.   
She danced a few times, unfamiliar with their waltzes but agile enough to compensate for it … and should agility fail, she could blame   
her missteps on trying to keep her tail out of the way of the other dancers.   
In addition to partnering Daniel, she danced with his father (most likely at Cecily's urging), a prominent radio psychiatrist, a baseball   
player, the vice president of Infiniware, a congressional hopeful, a pilot, and a young man who made a sly remark about how he could turn   
to stone too … partway. As if she hadn't heard _that_ one before, but she had learned the trick of their polite laughter.   
Funny how quickly the strange should become the accepted … only a few hours after arriving, she no longer felt as if all of the humans   
were staring at her. They'd all had their look, satisfied themselves that she was either all right or not an immediate threat, and the novelty   
of her presence had worn off.   
Thus, when she felt the prickle at the nape of her neck, she was mildly surprised but assumed it to be a late arrival. Until her muscles   
tensed in fighting instinct and she _knew_ that someone was watching her with hostile, even deadly, intent.   
Hippolyta gingerly set down the slim flute of champagne she'd been sipping, before the tightening of her fist could snap its stem. Her   
breathing went light and quick, mouth slightly open to better sample the air. It was what she did when she hunted, seeking the scent-trail   
of prey, but of course in here all she could smell were the mingled odors and perfumes of humans.   
She scanned the crowd. Dancers, but not as many … a children's choir from a local school was about to perform Christmas carols,   
so several of the guests had already moved to the area of seats and tables.   
Nothing seemed amiss, nothing seemed out of place …   
Yet her nerves were all aquiver.   
She reminded herself of the incredible security measures that surrounded this place. Thanks to her training with the Coalition, she had   
a fairly good grasp of what all was entailed. She'd noticed, though she doubted anyone else had except perhaps Dawes, that the servants   
who'd taken the coats of the guests had been carrying tiny but powerful metal detectors to check for weapons. She'd seen the tall poles   
outside and knew of the invisible laser alarm grid that would warn of anything coming in from above.   
But even with all that, she knew better than to think it would be _impossible_ for someone dangerous to get in here.   
Her slow, casual glance around the room showed no one suspicious … the only one looking in her direction was a brunette in a burgundy   
sheath and even she was looking more past Hippolyta than at her. The brunette was listening to a well-fed older man too obviously trying to   
impress, and even as Hippolyta watched, the woman excused herself and moved away.   
The way she moved …   
The way she walked …   
Her dress was a strapless wine-red sheath worn with long black gloves and a strand of black pearls. This left her back, shoulders, and   
upper arms bare … the smooth flexion of them telling Hippolyta of control, of fitness … of a warrior.   
Yes, the brunette moved as one with perfectly honed control of her body.   
She had turned away from Hippolyta, black hair in a French braid hanging down her back … but it suddenly was imperative that   
Hippolyta see her face.   
The woman in red was approaching the area of tables and chairs. The lights in that part of the room had dimmed, as spotlights winked   
on to focus attention on the stage where four tiers of children in suits and dresses blinked owlishly and shyly at the audience.   
Hippolyta followed at a quicker pace. The woman passed behind the large Christmas tree and –   
"Hippolyta, there you are!" Daniel said. His voice lowered as he leaned close. "I haven't had a chance before to tell you how beautiful   
you are. I hope you're enjoying the party."   
"I'd sooner be elsewhere," she admitted.   
He grinned and took her arm, his fingertips brushing the rounded serration of her elbow spur. It was a gesture that looked innocent   
enough to an observer, but it sent a tingle shooting up her arm and spreading through her body. "So would I."   
The children began singing, so high and pure that it made the very soul weep. _Frosty, the snowman …_   
"Daniel …" She bowed her head and shook it, forgetting about the brunette woman. "I do not know what to do anymore. Why must   
it all be so complicated?"   
"What? Us, you mean?"   
"All of it. Your parents, your future … and yes, us, if there is such a thing. I never thought that loveplay could be such a headache!"   
His eyes narrowed but his voice stayed mild. "What have they said to you?"   
"They the both of them have so many concerns and consequences that it dizzies me! When all we're speaking of is simple loveplay,   
harmless and no business of theirs! Yet they would have it seem that all the world hinges on it, and move us both like toys, like pawns."   
"I know." He sighed. "I've heard it from both of them. It's not enough that they have my political life mapped to the micrometer, they   
have to do the same with my personal life, because the one affects the other."   
"And am I to worry so about all that which might happen or might not or should or should not? I know you would be a good leader,   
and of great help to my kind, and I do not want to hamper that, but what of what _we_ want?"   
"We, Hippolyta, are selfish children who can't see beyond the gratification of the moment, who shallowly put our impulsive desires   
ahead of the greater good. At least, that's what they think."   
"Then what are we to do? If we cast their cares aside and enjoy each other, that is the very rebellion your father so smugly predicts …   
and I could not bear to see the knowing smirk in his eyes, yet I _know_ that he'll know that I would not …" It became too much for her   
to try and explain, so she just fluttered her hands expressively and Daniel nodded in rueful understanding.   
"They are masters of manipulation, have to give them that. And yes, I know just how you feel. Finding out that they've been running   
my life only makes me want to rebel just to show them, but …" He trailed off, raising a hand to rub at his cheek.   
His square gold cufflink, polished to a sheen, reflected a flash of deep red. And in that split second, all of Hippolyta's instincts came   
raging up again.   
She spun.   
The brunette in the burgundy gown was beside the Christmas tree, her arm plunged deep into the dense green needles. When she   
yanked it out, it had grown a new appendage – a familiar pulse rifle.   
Hippolyta noticed several things at once. With the concert underway, she and Daniel were nearly alone in this part of the ballroom. A   
trio of blinking lights traced a sleek wedge-shape in the dark sky above the glass dome. And the black wig didn't suit Hunter at all.   
Even as she was noticing, she was acting. A swipe of her tail knocked Daniel's feet from under him and he fell beneath the line of fire   
just as Hunter opened up.   
The rapid crack of the rifle sounded like pinecones exploding in a fire. A holly-and-ribbon swag disintegrated and a row of craters   
were blown in the wall.   
Hippolyta made to leap at Hunter, intending to wrest the weapon from her and subdue her. But despite these good intentions, her   
leap turned to a clumsy stumble, hobbled by the skirt of her gown.   
Even as she fought to regain her balance, she snatched up a silver serving tray and whipped it like a discus. Hunter saw it coming   
and turned her rifle on it, and the tray caromed skyward, beaten into a half-molten silvery blob that looked just like the movie museum.   
People were screaming now, but Hippolyta let the noise wash over her unheeded. She seized the edges of the slit in the side of her   
skirt and yanked. The seam parted with absurd ease, all the way to the hip.   
Hunter aimed at Daniel, but as her finger tightened on the trigger, a glass bauble ornament beside her head burst apart into a thousand   
sparkly fragments.   
"Stay down, Daniel!" Mr. Dawes, a silenced ceramic pistol in hand, shouted.   
As last words went, they were noble indeed, because a moment later, Hunter blew him away.   
Hippolyta tried that leap again, powerful legs propelling her up and over. She hit Hunter full on and they crashed into the tree. More   
ornaments flew off, and the air was suddenly rich with the piney scent of sap and crushed needles. The tree itself swayed, but had been   
affixed by wires to prevent its toppling.   
A fist smashed into the side of Hippolyta's head, dazzling her long enough for Hunter to burst free. Her wig remained caught in the   
branches, revealing her blond hair pinned into a tight cap.   
"No!" Hippolyta lunged out of the tree, shedding needles, her own carefully-done hair now a chaotic tangle. She drove Hunter to her   
knees as the rifle's crack came again, an ugly seared scar etched across the dance floor.   
More glass shattered, but this time it was the domed skylight. Huge chunks of it fell like guillotine blades. A colossal thunder filled the   
room, of engines as the hover-jet descended to the roof. And insanely, uselessly, from elsewhere deep in the mansion Hippolyta could   
hear the self-important bray of the perimeter alarm.   
"Don't do this!" she said into Hunter's ear. "Don't you see, they're using you, Diamond and the Coalition, just using you in their own   
power-games!"   
"Get off o' me, ye traitor!" snarled Hunter, and flipped Hippolyta head over tail.   
She landed on her back in a welter of broken glass and cried out as a razor edge sliced deeply through her wing membrane.   
"Hippolyta!" Daniel … but only calling out, not running to her, thank the Dragon!   
But even that was bad enough, for Hunter swung toward him.   
"Hunter, stop!" Hippolyta yelled.   
"Ye know I have t' do it," she said, and fired three times in eyeblink succession.   
All three shots slammed home. Daniel's white dinner jacket burst scarlet with blood. He was thrown back, hit the wall, jerked in place   
as the last shot hit, and then plummeted face-first.   
Hippolyta roared in rage and horror. She flung herself at Hunter, both fists locked together and raised high. Bringing them down and   
around with all her charging weight behind them, she felt the side of Hunter's ribcage give and heard the splintery crackle of bones.   
Hunter fell and rolled, and came to a stop with breath hitching and face contorted in pain. The rifle slid from her strengthless grasp.   
Hippolyta stalked toward her, tail whipping the air. She could hear Cecily Harmond shrieking her son's name, and each repetition of   
it made the fury intensify.   
"Ye … betrayed the … team!" gasped Hunter accusingly, a mist of red flying from her lips.   
There was nothing she could say to that, so she prepared to reply with her claws.   
A gout of seething orange flame, a comet, a molten meteor, impacted half a yard from her and showered fire all around. Burning agony   
like a swarm of stinging ants engulfed Hippolyta's leg. Her skirt ignited, and her skin pulled taut in the baking heat.   
A terrified clamoring outcry arose as Hellcat dropped into the ballroom, at the end of a tether-cable from the open side door of the   
hover jet.Her smoking hand was leveled unwaveringly at Hippolyta, but there was something in her lava-glow eyes, a quick flash of   
empathy.   
She had missed by half a yard … how unlucky … or how deliberate.   
Hippolyta tore off the blazing flaps of her skirt, leaving her standing there in a scrap of midnight blue that barely reached below the hem   
of the undergarment Cecily had insisted she wear. Her spirits sank as she faced Hellcat, for never once in all their practice bouts had she   
been able to get the physical better of the feline fireball.   
Hellcat sprang.   
Hippolyta readied … but Hellcat was not coming for her, not attacking. Instead, she bolted past Hippolyta, smoke curling in her wake,   
and scooped up Hunter in her arms. Hunter screamed as her ribs ground together, spewing a mouthful of blood, but Hellcat didn't falter.   
She was still hooked to the tether, and no sooner did she have a secure hold on Hunter than the cable whirred in fast ascent.   
They didn't mean to finish it! Didn't mean to deal with her!   
Infuriated, offended, and desperate, Hippolyta jumped high as she could. But Hellcat and Hunter were going up too fast, out of her   
reach. She went up the tree as quick as she was able, knocking off more ornaments as she clawed/climbed.   
The Christmas tree teetered, two of its moorings already torn loose when the dome broke. As she neared the top, the narrowing trunk   
bent sickeningly under her weight. But by then, Hippolyta was close enough to leap at the crisscross of metal frames that had held the   
panes of glass. Sharp slivers pierced her hands as she pulled herself up and out, onto the roof of the mansion.   
Through the windshield of the hover-jet, she glimpsed Hyena sneering cruelly at her. Hyena made an obscene gesture and mouthed   
the words to go with it, and the jet's thrusters bellowed.   
The hot blast of downdraft flattened Hippolyta against the roof and sent part of her mind spinning back to the helicopter, the Coalition,   
the whole reason she'd ended up in this mess. The rest of her was agonized with helpless anger as the jet shot skyward and then sped away,   
far too fast for her to catch up.   
She tried anyway, but even on a set of whole wings she wouldn't have had a chance. With one split and bleeding, a limping glide was   
the best she could do before having to admit defeat. 

** 

She returned to the mansion on foot, each step sending darts of pain along her burnt leg and injured wing. A blood trail in the snow   
marked her passage.   
Chaos greeted her there. Guards, guests, police, paramedics, choir children, servants … humans of all descriptions milled about in   
confusion, shock, terror, and dismay. Sirens replaced carols, their banshee wails screeching into the night. Flashing lights of red and blue   
outshone the decorations.   
Into this came Hippolyta, looking and feeling as if she'd been dragged through the undersides of hell. Worst of all, eating at her soul   
until it was nothing but a black pit of misery, was the knowledge that she'd failed.   
Gargoyles protect.   
But she hadn't done it well enough to save Daniel. Her friend, her almost-lover … one she would have been proud to consider clan.   
She had failed to protect him, and failed to avenge him. Fractured ribs for Hunter would heal. They had bested her and gotten away,   
and hadn't even deemed her worthy of disposing of, to complete the repayment for her treachery.   
Or perhaps _this_ was their repayment, to let her live. To wake every night with the knowledge of her failures.   
As she reached the helter-skelter slew of parked cars, someone pointed at her and cried, "There's one of them!"   
Wildfire panic seized them, and suddenly people who had spoken with her, men who had danced with her, turned on her as their enemy.   
She shrank back, arms crossed over her face, as they came at her in a maddened mob. They would rip her to pieces with their weak, fragile   
hands if they had to … and Hippolyta could not raise a talon against them.   
In the abyss of her despair, she almost _welcomed_ them …   
"Everybody stop where you are!" bellowed a voice nearly as deep, though not as resounding, as that of great Goliath himself.   
Hippolyta looked up in a maelstrom of emotion, but it was no gargoyle she saw. A human, a policeman, in a uniform. His skin was a   
shade of chocolate-brown that recalled her sister Thisbe, and an aura of imposing presence radiated from him strongly enough to quell   
the mob.   
"We were told," he continued, "that a gargoyle _fought_ the assassins. Is this her?"   
"Oh … yeah," mumbled a man in the crowd.   
"That's right … she did," seconded a woman.   
And with that, their fickle tide of madness turned, and they went back to their aimless milling about.   
The policeman – a badge on his chest named him Blake – touched Hippolyta's shoulder. "Are you all right?"   
"No."   
"Let me get you to a doctor."   
"Daniel … where is he?"   
His ink-dark eyes, so solemn … she read the terrible truth in them and the last light of hope was snuffed in her like a candle, leaving only   
a cold empty blackness in and around her heart, as if it beat its triple beat silently in the vast barren chasms at the bottom of the sea.   
She shook, shook from the bones outward, unable to utter more than the smallest and bleakest of moans. She held onto the nearest car   
for support, but the sight of the motto painted across the door was like a dagger stabbed into her heart.   
"Come on," Blake said kindly. "I'll take you inside. His mother --"   
He had been about to put an arm around her, but Hippolyta recoiled as if bitten. "No! I cannot face her, cannot face his parents! Not   
when I failed him! Not when I've ruined all their plans far more finally than they ever dreamed!"   
"I want to help you," he said.   
"Oh, why?" she flung, meaning her words to be a blow. "What's a gargoyle to you, human?"   
Blake took that blow undaunted. "Nothing to me; a hell of a lot to a lady I used to know."   
"No one can help me now … unless you'll draw that gun and end my suffering."   
_That_ one, he could not take calmly. "What? No chance!"   
"Then," she said heavily, standing as upright as she could, "there's nothing more for me here. Farewell, Officer Blake."   
"Wait!"   
But she did not heed his call, only walked back the way she'd come. She heard another police officer ask if they should stop her, and   
Blake's answer.   
"No … let her go."   
So she went. 

**   
** 

**_Epilogue –_**

He'd been on-duty for fourteen hours now and it wasn't looking like he'd be getting to go home soon.   
Damon Blake was escorted upstairs by a stone-faced young man with a dark suit and "feds" written all over him. He wasn't sure where   
these people had come from, but half a dozen of them had shown up and unobtrusively taken over … and without ever showing anyone   
their credentials, as far as rumor among the boys in blue went.   
Whoever they were, they were efficient. The estate was locked down, the news was blacked out, and nobody was being permitted in   
or out until whatever investigations they were doing had been completed to their satisfaction.   
The man at the desk was on the phone when Damon came in. He acknowledged the policeman's presence with a nod, intent on whatever   
he was hearing from the person at the other end.   
Damon wasn't sure what to make of any of it. Instead of Senator Levesque calling the shots – which would have been okay since it was   
her property … instead of the cops or even the unidentified feds calling the shots … Gregory Harmond was in charge. Sure, he had military   
rank, but the war hero had retired from the service two decades ago and gone into the lower-profile life of business and industry. Yet there   
was no question in Damon's mind that he was in front of a big cheese indeed.   
He stood at parade rest, eyes fixed on a vague point somewhere above Harmond's head, and did his best to be oblivious of the conversation.   
Harmond finally wrapped it up congenially. "Thanks, Gary … my best to your lovely wife and the kids. Yes, of course. No, you don't need   
to worry about that. You can still count on it. Absolutely. Yes, Merry Christmas to you too."   
He hung up and scrutinized Damon. "Officer Blake."   
"I'm told you wanted to see me, sir." Damon kept his words crisp and formal.   
"Yes. You saw a gargoyle earlier?"   
"I did, sir."   
"Tell me what happened out there."   
With a brusque nod, Damon told him how the wounded gargoyle had appeared and nearly been attacked by the hysterical crowd.   
"Yet you intervened. Why?"   
"They would have hurt her, sir, and the reports we'd heard all confirmed that a gargoyle tried to stop the perpetrators."   
"And you let her go."   
Damon frowned. "I didn't have any reason not to. I offered her help and medical attention, which she refused."   
"Didn't it occur to you that she might need to be questioned?"   
"No, sir … it didn't."   
"Hmm. And what happened next? Where did she go?"   
"I don't know, sir. She left on foot, and I returned my attention to the more immediate problems surrounding me."   
"I'm very displeased, Officer Blake."   
"I'm sorry to hear that, sir, but I fail to see why. All accounts agree that the gargoyle was trying to _defend_ your son." _And aren't you a_   
_cold bastard about it anyway,_ he added silently.   
A tightening of Harmond's lips made Damon worry that the older man had heard his unspoken remark. But rather than mention it, he said,   
"Naturally … it's what they do. It's all their kind can understand. And that's why I want her found."   
Damon didn't let his expression change, but he had gone still and frosty on the inside.   
It had been in Harmond's tone even more than his words, sending Damon's memory back twenty years to when he was a teenage kid in   
one of New York's poorer neighborhoods. He'd gotten a job with a corner grocer, and been in the stockroom one day when he heard someone   
ask his boss how the new guy was working out.   
His boss had been a huge greasy slovenly barrel of a man, beer-swilling and lowbrow, the complete physical and social opposite of Gregory   
Harmond. But the arrogance had been just the same as his boss had replied, "Well, you know how it is. They work hard, but only while you're   
watching 'em … it's all their kind can understand."   
_Their_ kind.   
Not as good as _our_ kind.   
Bad enough when that attitude came from an uneducated, ignorant slob. But when it was coming from a man admired for his fairness, for his   
stance on human rights …   
Well, that was the catch, wasn't it?   
"She's gone," Damon said, keeping his tone carefully neutral.   
"I'm aware of that. I want you to track her down."   
"No can do. I'm a beat cop, not a detective."   
"I don't think you grasp the importance of --"   
"Explain it to me."   
Clearly, Harmond wasn't used to being talked to like that, and clearly, he didn't get a kick out of it. "Officer Blake, we're on the same side   
here. I don't know how you've gotten it into your head that I'm your enemy, or that my reasons for finding Hippolyta are somehow … sinister   
… but I assure you, they're not."   
"It's sounding to me like you're blaming her for what happened here, when there's plenty of fault to go around. Like the estate security, who   
let someone stash an illegal pulse rifle inside the Christmas tree. Like whoever didn't run a thorough check on the guest list so the gunwoman   
could get in here. The gargoyle – Hippolyta – did her best to try and save your boy … and I'm not getting the idea that you want her found   
so that you can thank her."   
"Fair enough … you're partly right. I don't blame her for the attack. I don't even blame her for not being able to stop Daniel from getting shot.   
But I want to know where she is. I want to keep tabs on her."   
"Mind my asking why?"   
"As a matter of fact, I do."   
"Okay. Sir," he added belatedly. "Suit yourself. But I don't know how you're going to find her if she doesn't want to be found. Her _kind_ kept   
themselves hidden for hundreds of years."   
"I seem to have inadvertently touched a nerve," Harmond observed, drumming his fingers on the desk. "You're familiar with them, aren't you,   
Officer? Gargoyles?"   
"No more than anyone else," Damon said guardedly.   
"I understand you are originally from New York. And that you once served with Detective Sergeant Elisa Maza."   
"She was my first partner."   
"And her connection with gargoyles is rather, shall we say, well-known."   
"Where's this leading, Mr. Harmond?"   
"Indulge me," he commanded. "Tell me about your partnership with Elisa Maza."   
Damon almost told him to go to hell, but figured that it couldn't hurt. "I joined the force in 1992. She trained me. We worked together about   
eight months, and then she passed her detective exams. After that, we didn't run into each other much."   
"But you knew about the gargoyles."   
"I was there when the sightings started, but back then, everybody thought it was all phony. Urban legends, hoaxes, crank calls. I moved   
out here in 1995. And with all due respect, if you know so much about my record, you must know all that already."   
"True," Harmond said, unruffled. "So why are you so determined to protect this gargoyle?"   
"Why are you so determined to find her?"   
"She's a loose end, Officer Blake. I despise loose ends." He paused. "And also … my son will want to know where she went."   
"Your son is alive?"   
"I've heard nothing to the contrary, though I suppose the issue may still be in doubt, depending on how the surgery goes."   
"We were told he'd been killed."   
"You'd also heard that Hippolyta wasn't involved … a caution, Officer, not to believe everything you hear."   
"Are you saying she _was_?"   
"Would that make you more inclined to look for her?"   
Damon remembered the gargoyle's devastated reaction. "She wasn't," he said surely. "But I will do my damndest to find her."   
"I'm glad to --"   
"Not so fast … I'm not doing it for you. I'm doing it for her. I let her leave thinking your son was dead."   
Harmond brightened … _brightened_ … at this. "Did you? Well, in that case, Officer Blake, never mind. There's no need to trace her after   
all." 

** 

Hunter swam up to consciousness as if surfacing through murky water. Her lips were glued together with dried saliva, and when she peeled   
them apart, the skin of her upper lip split in a painful, stinging line.   
"How bad?" she croaked.   
"You won't be doing the limbo for a long time," Hyena replied from somewhere near her head.   
Her eyes were gummed shut too, and when she tried to raise her hands to rub them, nothing happened. She was encased in something solid   
and heavy from her chin to her hips.   
"Ye have the bedside manner o' a coroner. How bad is it?"   
"Six broken ribs, three cracked vertebrae, one punctured lung, some internal bleeding, and a partridge in a pear tree." Hyena finished on a   
sing-song note that made Hunter dearly wish to clout her one.   
She managed to squinch her face about and get her eyes unstuck, opening them to the sight of the Coalition's main infirmary. "Am I paralyzed?"   
It was her worst fear. Taking care of Jason, her once strong and admired brother transformed into an invalid unable to walk or tend his own   
bodily functions, learning more about wheelchairs and physical therapy than she'd ever had a desire to know … it had always been too easy to   
imagine herself in his place. Helpless, dependent on another for even the most personal of tasks.   
"I dunno … do you feel this?"   
Nothing.   
"No."   
"How about this?"   
"No. Och, God …"   
Hellcat moved into Hunter's field of vision just as it was starting to blur with tears. She gave Hyena a smoking look – literally – and reached   
down.   
Hunter felt a furry hand close around her foot, the sharp but gentle prick of claws extending.   
"I felt that!"   
"Party pooper," Hyena said to Hellcat.   
"What are ye talking about?"   
"Aw, I was messing with you before. Didn't touch you. See?" She flicked at Hunter's big toe.   
"Ow! Ye bitch, d'ye think that's funny?"   
"Yeah, you should have seen your face!" She whooped with cruel laughter.   
"What about Hippolyta? What happened? What day is it?"   
"They must give you good drugs. I told you all of that an hour ago."   
"Tell me again!"   
Hunter realized that Hyena was right … they _must_ be good drugs, because despite the catalog of injuries she'd obtained, she had no pain   
at all and everything seemed to have nicely rounded edges, no straight lines. She also made a personal little promise to herself – no more   
undercover missions in evening wear. Body armor only. That damned red dress hadn't absorbed a thing!   
"We could have taken her out too," Hyena said, "but some _pussy_ didn't blast her when she had the chance."   
Hellcat bared her teeth and hissed.   
"Still," Hyena went on, "gotta admit, it was pretty ballsy of her. Ditching us like that, stabbing us in the back. You think she and Harmond   
were bumping uglies or something?"   
"She did what she thought was right," Hunter said. "How many o' us can say that? She stood by her convictions. Ye have t' admire her for   
having the strength t' make the decision."   
"Instead of being a good little soldier but angsting about it until the cows come home like _some_ people. Got to do something about this   
conscience of yours, Hunter. Either give it up like I did, or live by it, but pick one because you're driving me bugfuck."   
The infirmary doors opened and a Coalition physician came in, followed by Diamond. The former looked at Hunter as if privately amazed   
that she was still drawing breath and taking nourishment – which she was, if the IV tubes running into her body were any indication. The latter   
wore the pinched expression of someone very displeased.   
But whatever it was that was on Diamond's mind, she let it wait until after the doctor had a chance to explain to Hunter in more detail the   
extent of her condition and her prospects for recovery. Long, tedious, and painful, was what it sounded like.   
Then it was Diamond's turn. She had a folded-up newspaper in one hand, and slapped it repeatedly against the palm of the other. "Well,   
girls …quite the night's work, wouldn't you say?"   
"What, we did it!" Hyena said defensively.   
"Did you?"   
Diamond opened the _Seattle Times_ and held it up so they could all read the headline – HARMOND ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT FAILS –   
and beneath, in slightly smaller lettering, _Teenage med student saves America's Prince with eighteen hours of heroic surgery_.   
Hunter swore loudly and vehemently … but on the inside, despite herself, she couldn't help smiling. Just a little. 

** 

"Gone," Daniel Harmond said. "How can she be _gone_?"   
His mother smoothed the hair back from his forehead and gave him one of her patented Cecily Tate kisses, the kind that never quite touched the   
skin lest it smudge her makeup and leave an unbecoming mark of lipstick on the subject.   
"Try to rest, Daniel dear. Don't think about it."   
"She left," his father said, and shook his head. "We don't know where she went, or why, but your mother's right. She's gone and there's nothing   
we can do about it."   
Daniel tried to raise his head but it felt like a swollen October pumpkin on the end of a pipestem neck, and he could only hold it up for a second   
before letting it drop into the softness of the pillow.   
"I can't believe it. She wouldn't go. Not without saying goodbye."   
Hardness crept into his father's voice. "Unless she had something to hide."   
"No. Not Hippolyta. You can't expect me to believe she was a part of this!"   
"Shh, Daniel … don't try to move!" Cecily said. "Mustn't undo all of Anton's knitting, now."   
"We're not sure _what_ to believe," Gregory Harmond said. "Some might think that she got you away from the crowd, right near the tree, so that   
the other one could have a clear shot, and all the rest of it was just for show."   
"That's not what happened."   
"That's enough, both of you, really," Cecily chided. "Daniel, you've been very seriously hurt and you need to rest. Gregory, don't badger him.   
I'm sure Hippolyta had reasons of her own for leaving, whatever they were. But the important thing now is to get you better again."   
He just didn't have the energy to argue any more, but as he drifted off to sleep he thought he heard her, Hippolyta. Alone … weeping, miserable,   
and alone. 

** 

The truck stop was a sprawling, stinking sea of concrete out of which diesel pumps jutted in a strange rectangular atoll around a cinderblock-and-   
glass island.   
That island housed a diner, a bar, and a closet-sized convenience-mart. The ships that docked there were for the most part long and rumbling,   
sailing on their eighteen tar-black wheels. A few smaller vessels mingled with the semis, families on long drives needing a fill-up, a restroom, or a   
quick resupply of junk-snacks.   
Hippolyta stood in the shadows beyond the reach of the jaundice-yellow streetlights, scanning the vehicles idly. They were all going somewhere,   
and where hardly mattered. It was best to be away from this place before she was discovered, and possibly linked to the break-in.   
Here in Redding, at the northern end of California, the weather was dry and only moderately cold. A thin skin of frost glazed some of the windows   
of trucks that had been parked for a while, perhaps while their drivers napped in the large cabs.   
Her nightmare journey was still fresh in her mind, yet at the same time oddly jumbled. She wasn't sure how many nights it had been, or exactly   
how far she had come. All she knew was that in leaving the senator's estate, her wing torn and unable to support her for any sustained gliding, she   
would have to find some other transportation.   
So it was that she'd come to the trainyards, and seen one just chugging its way down the tracks. It had been no difficult matter to cling to the side   
of a boxcar long enough to work open the door.   
She'd huddled there amid the crates, driven to move only when her hunger became too great. Some of the crates held apples, others packages   
of vacuum-sealed smoked salmon, and she had eaten as well as her heartsick appetite would allow.   
When she sensed dawn nearing, she left the safety of her boxcar and watched the train leave, finding shelter in the forest. She didn't dare risk   
staying aboard, not wanting her statue to be discovered by rail-workers.   
The day's sleep mended her wing and her various other hurts, except for the deep wound to her soul. For that, she knew, stone healing would   
do nothing.   
She found another train, and made her way south in this fashion. Once or twice, she was nearly spotted by humans, but the only time one actually   
did see her, it was a whiskey-smelling and grievously addled old man who seemed to have made a home for himself beneath a trestle.   
When she'd reached Redding, however, she knew that she would have to do something other than ride along and scavenge for scraps. She was   
still in just the tatters of her fine midnight-blue gown, with no weapons, no money. Her only real possession was the gold necklace she wore, and it   
gave her bittersweet comfort to fold the castle-shaped pendant in her palm.   
But she could not go on like that, so when her gaze fell upon the large building opposite the trainyard, she knew what she had to do. It had been   
a combination army-surplus and sporting goods emporium, and after forcing the back door, she was able to outfit herself properly. Though quickly;   
she had disabled the alarm but knew that it probably hadn't gone unnoticed.   
Now she at least looked more like herself again, and felt more like it too. The baggy, many-pocketed pants were splotched black and grey, and   
once she slit a hole in the rump and tore the bottom cuffs wider, they fit well enough. She had a snug black zippered halter of the sports-bra variety,   
and a rainproof hooded poncho. She had a sturdy hunting knife sheathed on her calf.   
A dun-brown duffel bag was filled with random items she'd collected – matches, a canteen, foil-packaged dried foods, a lightweight cook pot,   
a 50-in-1 folding tool, a booklet on woodland survival, other things.   
Most crucial of all, she had a bow in hand and a full quiver of arrows at her hip, and at last that made her fully Hippolyta again.   
Thus equipped, she had departed the store before anyone could arrive in response to the alarm, and found herself at the truck stop.   
She looked at the bright-lit windows, breathed the scents of grilled meat and grease beneath those of oil and exhaust, listened to the music that   
swelled and diminished in time with the opening and closing of the doors.   
That was no place for her. If she walked boldly in, she would find no welcome there.   
What she needed was another ride. Not knowing where she was going made it senseless and tiring to try and glide there. Better to save the   
strain on her wings and let engine and tires expend the effort.   
As she watched the ebb and flow of the traffic tide, she realized that many of the trucks coming from a certain direction were laden with felled   
trees, huge shaggy-barked logs. That way was the mountains, that way was the sea. If there was a good large wildland in which a gargoyle might   
lose herself, surely that was the direction to travel.   
So thinking, she waited until she spotted a likely prospect driving toward the sign reading "Hwy. 299 West," and glided after it. The truck was   
the girdered-skeletal sort that carried cars on its back as a mother opossum might carry her kits.   
Hippolyta chose the uppermost, frontmost car – the one the driver could least see if he happened to look in his mirrors at that moment. She   
wrenched the rear door open, crawled into the back seat, and closed it after her. It wouldn't latch quite as well, since she'd mangled the lock, and   
the wind made an annoying whistle thanks to it, but she could tolerate it.   
It was only then, warmer and more comfortable and better-fed than she'd been in several nights, that Hippolyta could be lulled into grieving. She   
wept for Daniel, for herself, for the clan she'd lost … and for the uncertain, lonely future unspooling before her in a black ribbon of roadway toward   
the coast. 

**   
** 

**_The End._**   



End file.
